Main menu

Russia-gate’s Totalitarian Style

September 2, 2017

Special Report: The New York Times is at it again, reporting unproven allegations about Russia as flat fact, while anyone who questions the Russia-gate groupthink faces ugly attacks, reports Robert Parry.

By Robert Parry

It is a basic rule from Journalism 101 that when an allegation is in serious doubt – or hasn’t been established as fact – you should convey that uncertainty to your reader by using words like “alleged” or “purportedly.” But The New York Times and pretty much the entire U.S. news media have abandoned that principle in their avid pursuit of Russia-gate.

New York Times building in New York City. (Photo from Wikipedia)

When Russia is the target of an article, the Times typically casts aside all uncertainty about Russia’s guilt, a pattern that we’ve seen in the Times in earlier sloppy reporting about other “enemy” countries, such as Iraq or Syria, as well Russia’s involvement in Ukraine’s civil war. Again and again, the Times regurgitates highly tendentious claims by the U.S. government as undeniable truth.

So, despite the lack of publicly provided evidence that the Russian government did “hack” Democratic emails and slip them to WikiLeaks to damage Hillary Clinton and help Donald Trump, the Times continues to treat those allegations as flat fact.

For a while, the Times also repeated the false claim that “all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies” concurred in the Russia-did-it conclusion, a lie that was used to intimidate and silence skeptics of the thinly sourced Russia-gate reports issued by President Obama’s intelligence chiefs.

Only after two of those chiefs – Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and CIA Director John Brennan – admitted that the key Jan. 6 report was produced by what Clapper called “hand-picked” analysts from just three agencies, the Times was forced to run an embarrassing correction retracting the “17 agencies” canard.

But the Times then switched its phrasing to a claim that Russian guilt was a “consensus” of the U.S. intelligence community, a misleading formulation that still suggests that all 17 agencies were onboard without actually saying so – all the better to fool the Times readers.

The Times seems to have forgotten what one of its own journalists observed immediately after reading the Jan. 6 report. Scott Shane wrote: “What is missing from the public report is what many Americans most eagerly anticipated: hard evidence to back up the agencies’ claims that the Russian government engineered the election attack. … Instead, the message from the agencies essentially amounts to ‘trust us.’”

However, if that was the calculation of Obama’s intelligence chiefs – that proof would not be required – they got that right, since the Times and pretty much every other major U.S. news outlet has chosen to trust, not verify, on Russia-gate.

Dropping the Attribution

In story after story, the Times doesn’t even bother to attribute the claims of Russian guilt. That guilt is just presented as flat fact even though the Russian government denies it and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange says he did not get the emails from Russia or any other government.

CIA seal in lobby of the spy agency’s headquarters. (U.S. government photo)

Of course, it is possible the Russian government is lying and that some cut-outs were used to hide from Assange the real source of the emails. But the point is that we don’t know the truth and neither does The New York Times – and likely neither does the U.S. government (although it talks boldly about its “high confidence” in the evidence-lite conclusions of those “hand-picked” analysts).

And, the Times continues with this pattern of asserting as certain what is both in dispute and lacking in verifiable evidence. In a front-page Russia-gate story on Saturday, the Times treats Russian guilt as flat fact again. The online version of the story carried the headline: “Russian Election Hacking Efforts, Wider Than Previously Known, Draw Little Scrutiny.”

The Times’ article opens with an alarmist lede about voters in heavily Democratic Durham, North Carolina, encountering problems with computer rolls:

“Susan Greenhalgh, a troubleshooter at a nonpartisan election monitoring group, knew that the company that provided Durham’s software, VR Systems, had been penetrated by Russian hackers months before. ‘It felt like tampering, or some kind of cyberattack,’ Ms. Greenhalgh said about the voting troubles in Durham.”

The Times reported that Greenhalgh “knew” this supposed fact because she heard it on “a CNN report.”

If you read deeper into the story, you learn that “local officials blamed human error and software malfunctions — and no clear-cut evidence of digital sabotage has emerged, much less a Russian role in it.” But the Times clearly doesn’t buy that explanation, adding:

“After a presidential campaign scarred by Russian meddling, local, state and federal agencies have conducted little of the type of digital forensic investigation required to assess the impact, if any, on voting in at least 21 states whose election systems were targeted by Russian hackers, according to interviews with nearly two dozen national security and state officials and election technology specialists.”

But was the 2016 campaign really “scarred by Russian meddling”? For instance, the “fake news” hysteria of last fall was actually traced to young entrepreneurs who were exploiting the gullibility of Donald Trump’s supporters to get lots of “clicks” and thus make more ad revenue. The stories didn’t trace back to the Russian government. (Even the Times discovered that reality although it apparently has since been forgotten.)

‘Undermining’ American Democracy

The Jan. 6 report by those “hand-picked” analysts from CIA, FBI and the National Security Agency did tack on a seven-page appendix from 2012 that accused Russia’s RT network of seeking to undermine U.S. democracy. But the complaints were bizarre if not laughable, including the charge that RT covered the Occupy Wall Street protests, reported on the dangers of “fracking,” and allowed third-party presidential candidates to state their views after they were excluded from the two-party debate between Republican Mitt Romney and Democrat Barack Obama.

Red Square in Moscow with a winter festival to the left and the Kremlin to the right. (Photo by Robert Parry)

That such silly examples of “undermining” American democracy were even cited in the Jan. 6 report should have been an alarm bell to any professional journalist that the report was a classic case of biased analysis if not outright propaganda. But the report was issued amid the frenzy over the incoming Trump presidency when Democrats – and much of the mainstream media – were enlisting in the #Resistance. The Jan. 6 report was viewed as a crucial weapon to take out Trump, so skepticism was suppressed.

Because of that – and with Trump continuing to alarm many Americans with his erratic temperament and his coy encouragement of white nationalism – the flimsy Russian “hacking” case has firmed up into a not-to-be-questioned groupthink, as the Times story on Saturday makes clear:

“The assaults on the vast back-end election apparatus [i.e. voting rolls] … have received far less attention than other aspects of the Russian interference, such as the hacking of Democratic emails and spreading of false or damaging information about Mrs. Clinton. Yet the hacking of electoral systems was more extensive than previously disclosed, The New York Times found.”

In other words, even though there has been no solid proof of this “Russian interference” – either the “hacking of Democratic emails” or the “spreading of false or damaging information about Mrs. Clinton” – the Times reports those allegations as flat fact before extending the suspicions into the supposed “hacking of electoral systems” despite the lack of supporting evidence and in the face of counter-explanations from local officials. As far as the Times is concerned, the problem couldn’t be that some volunteer poll worker screwed up the software. No, it must be the dirty work of Russia! Russia! Russia!

The Times asserts that “Russian efforts to compromise American election systems … include combing through voter databases, scanning for vulnerabilities or seeking to alter data, which have been identified in multiple states.” Again, the Times does not apply words like “alleged”; it is just flat fact.

Uncertainty Acknowledged

Yet, oddly, the quote used to back up this key accusation acknowledges how little is actually known. The Times cites Michael Daniel, the cybersecurity coordinator in the Obama White House, as saying:

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper (right) talks with President Barack Obama in the Oval Office, with John Brennan and other national security aides present. (Photo credit: Office of Director of National Intelligence)

“We don’t know if any of the [computer] problems were an accident, or the random problems you get with computer systems, or whether it was a local hacker, or actual malfeasance by a sovereign nation-state. … If you really want to know what happened, you’d have to do a lot of forensics, a lot of research and investigation, and you may not find out even then.’”

Which is exactly the point: as far as we know from the public record, no U.S. government forensics have been done on the Russian “hacking” allegations, period. Regarding the “hack” of the Democratic National Committee’s emails, the FBI did not secure the computers for examination but instead relied on the checkered reputation of a private outfit called Crowdstrike, which based much of its conclusion on the fact that Russian lettering and a reference to a famous Russian spy were inserted into the metadata. Why the supposedly crack Russian government hackers would be so sloppy has never been explained. It also could not be excluded that these insertions were done deliberately to incriminate the Russians.

Without skepticism, the Times accepts that there is some secret U.S. government information that should bolster the public’s confidence about Russian guilt, but none of that evidence is spelled out, other than ironically to say what the Russians weren’t doing.

The Times cited the Jan. 6 report’s determination that “The Russians shied away from measures that might alter the ‘tallying’ of votes, … a conclusion drawn from American spying and intercepts of Russian officials’ communications and an analysis by the Department of Homeland Security, according to the current and former government officials.”

But this seems to be the one U.S. government conclusion that the Times doubts, i.e., a finding of Russian innocence on the question of altering the vote count.

Again accepting as flat fact all the other U.S. government claims about Russia, the Times writes: “Apart from the Russian influence campaign intended to undermine Mrs. Clinton and other Democratic officials, the impact of the quieter Russian hacking efforts at the state and county level has not been widely studied.”

There’s, of course, another rule from Journalism 101: that when there is a serious accusation, the accused is afforded a meaningful chance to dispute the allegation, but the Times lengthy article ignores that principle, too. The Russian government and WikiLeaks do not get a shot at knocking down the various allegations and suspicions.

Deep-seated Bias

The reality is that the Times has engaged in a long pattern of anti-Russia prejudice going back a number of years but escalating dramatically since 2013 when prominent neoconservatives began to target Russia as an obstacle to their agendas of “regime change” in Syria and “bomb-bomb-bombing” Iran.

Nazi symbols on helmets worn by members of Ukraine’s Azov battalion. (As filmed by a Norwegian film crew and shown on German TV)

By September 2013, the neocons were targeting Ukraine as what neocon National Endowment for Democracy president Carl Gershman deemed the “biggest prize” and an important step toward an even bigger prize, neutralizing or ousting Russian President Vladimir Putin.

When neocon U.S. officials, such as Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and Sen. John McCain, encouraged a coup that overthrew Ukraine’s elected President Viktor Yanukovych, the Times served as a cheerleader for the coup-makers even though the violence was spearheaded by neo-Nazis and extreme Ukrainian nationalists.

When ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine and Crimea resisted the Feb. 22, 2014 coup, the Times collaborated with the State Department in presenting this rejection of an unconstitutional transfer of power as a “Russian invasion.”

For instance, on April 21, 2014, the Times led its print editions with an investigative story using photos provided by the coup regime and the State Department to supposedly show that fighters inside Ukraine had previously been photographed inside Russia, except that the two key photographs were both taken inside Ukraine, forcing the Times to run a half-hearted retraction two days later.

Photograph published by the New York Times purportedly taken in Russia of Russian soldiers who later appeared in eastern Ukraine. However, the photographer has since stated that the photo was actually taken in Ukraine, and the U.S. State Department has acknowledged the error.

Here is the tortured way the Times treated that embarrassing lapse in its journalistic standards: “A packet of American briefing materials … asserts that the photograph was taken in Russia. The same men are also shown in photographs taken in Ukraine. Their appearance in both photographs was presented as evidence of Russian involvement in eastern Ukraine.

“The packet was later provided by American officials to The New York Times, which included that description of the group photograph in an article and caption that was published on Monday. The dispute over the group photograph cast a cloud over one particularly vivid and highly publicized piece of evidence.”

In other words, U.S. officials hand-fed the Times this “scoop” on a Russian “invasion” and the Times swallowed it whole. But the Times never seems to learn any lessons from its credulous approach to whatever the U.S. government provides. You might have thought that the Times’ disgraceful performance in pushing the Iraq-WMD story in 2002 would have given the newspaper pause, but its ideological biases apparently win out every time.

Two Birds, One Stone

In the case of the Russian “hacking” stories, the anti-Russia bias is compounded by an anti-Trump bias, a two-fer that has overwhelmed all notions of journalistic principles not only at the Times but at other mainstream news outlets and many liberal/progressive ones which want desperately to see Trump impeached and view Russia-gate as the pathway to that outcome.

So, while there was almost no skepticism about the Jan. 6 report by those “hand-picked” analysts – even though the report amounts only to a series of “we assess” this and “we assess” that, i.e,, their opinions, not facts – there has been a bubbling media campaign to discredit a July 24 memo by the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.

Former National Security Agency official William Binney sitting in the offices of Democracy Now! in New York City. (Photo credit: Jacob Appelbaum)

The memo, signed by 17 members of the group including former NSA technical director for world geopolitical and military analysis William Binney, challenged the technological possibility of Russian hackers extracting data over the Internet at the speed reflected in one of the posted documents.

After The Nation published an article by Patrick Lawrence about the VIPS memo (a story that we re-posted at Consortiumnews.com), editor Katrina vanden Heuvel came under intense pressure inside the liberal magazine to somehow repudiate its findings and restore the Russia-gate groupthink.

Outside pressure also came from a number of mainstream sources, including Washington Post blogger Eric Wemple, who interviewed Nation columnist Katha Pollitt about the inside anger over Lawrence’s story and its citation by Trump defenders, a development which upset Pollitt: “These are our friends now? The Washington Times, Breitbart, Seth Rich truthers and Donald Trump Jr.? Give me a break. It’s very upsetting to me. It’s embarrassing.”

However, in old-fashioned journalism, our reporting was intended to inform the American people and indeed the world as fully and fairly as possible. We had no control over how the information would play out in the public domain. If our information was seized upon by one group or another, so be it. It was the truthfulness of the information that was important, not who cited it.

A Strange Attack

But clearly inside The Nation, Pollitt and others were upset that the VIPS memo had undercut the Russia-gate groupthink. So, in response to this pressure, vanden Heuvel solicited an attack on the VIPS memo by several dissident members of VIPS and she topped Lawrence’s article with a lengthy editor’s note.

Strangely, this solicited attack on the VIPS memo cites as its “first” point that the Jan. 6 intelligence report did not explicitly use the word “hack,” but rather “cyber operation,” adding: “This could mean via the network, the cloud, computers, remote hacking, or direct data removal.”

That uncertainty about how the emails were extracted supposedly undercut the VIPS argument that the download speeds prohibited the possibility of a “hack,” but this pretense that the phrase “cyber operation” isn’t referring to a “hack” amounts to a disingenuous word game. After all, senior U.S. intelligence officials, including former FBI Director James Comey, have stated under oath and in interviews with major news outlets that they were referring to a “hack.”

These officials also have cited the Crowdstrike analysis of the DNC “hack” as support for their analysis, and Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta has described how he was the victim of a “spear-phishing” scam that allowed his emails to be hacked.

After all these months of articles about the Russian “hack,” it seems a bit late to suddenly pretend no one was referring to a “hack” – only after some seasoned experts concluded that a “hack” was not feasible. Despite the latest attacks, the authors of the VIPS memo, including former NSA technology official Binney, stand by their findings.

Russia scholar Stephen Cohen.

However, when the cause is to demonize Russia and/or to unseat Trump, apparently any sleight of hand or McCarthyistic smear is permissible.

In Post blogger Wemple’s article about The Nation’s decision to undercut the VIPS memo, he includes some nasty asides against Russia scholar Stephen Cohen, who happens to be Katrina vanden Heuvel’s husband.

Wemple also repeats the canard about “a consensus finding of the U.S. intelligence community” when we have known for some time that the Jan. 6 report was the work of those “hand-picked” analysts from three agencies, not a National Intelligence Estimate that would reflect the consensus view of all 17 agencies and include dissents.

What is playing out here – both at The New York Times and across the American media landscape – is a totalitarian-style approach toward any challenge to the groupthink on Russia-gate.

Even though the Obama administration’s intelligence chiefs presented no public evidence to support their “assessments,” anyone who questions their certainty can expect to be smeared and ridiculed. We must all treat unverified opinions as flat fact.

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com).

Personally, I would like to see someone make a list of the major owners & editors of the NYT as well as the other major U.S. media (include the Guardian and the NYT Paris edition) and see to it that they receive every article Parry writes plus a few of his key ones from the past like the Ukraine series. Some won’t read them, but those that do might wake up and influence their biases.

john wilson

September 3, 2017 at 12:25 pm

Actually, Pierre, it would be nice to know just who they are and what links they have to the deep state. I don’t believe all these once great news outlets would all have the same warped ideology unless they were being ‘guided’ by an unseen hand.

Martin - Swedish citizen

September 3, 2017 at 5:21 pm

Pierre and John,
I agree with you both.
This episode may contribute to the picture: following a programme on Swedish state tv in February which included lies and tilted statements about Ukraine and Russia, I asked the journalist and editor to issue a correction. They maintained their lies and even added to their lies (“there was no coup in Kiev”), which caused me to lift the issue to the managing director of Swedish state tv and the chairman of its board. I included links to ia consortium news, and a news paper article by a senior Swedish diplomat. I received no reply.
In 2014, in the same state tv program btw, Swedish foreign minister Ms Margot Wallström said that Sweden intends to win the propaganda war started by Russia. The propaganda war that she admitted to conducting on that programme is, it seems, what is implemented this way. Not only on state tv, but also on commercial tv and most newspapers.
There is a new designated unit for propaganda warfare in Sweden, and it seems there is a centre in Latvia that coordinates between EU and or NATO countries. What they do I don’t know.

Nancy

September 4, 2017 at 12:41 pm

Who really takes the NYT seriously anymore’ except the gang of circle jerks that spews this BS?

If the Russian interference in our election is “fake news”, then why has Trump and his admin risked crossing the line on obstruction of justice? Why have they lied and covered up about firing FBI Director Comey, and/or their meeting with Russians? There also is substantial proof of Trump engaging in money laundering. No one buys a home with substantial deferred maintenance, for 3X its market value, in 2008, following the “Great Recession”: http://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/why-did-a-russian-pay-95m-to-buy-trumps-palm-beach-mansion/.

Garry Zelk

September 2, 2017 at 6:44 pm

Trump doing business/money laundering with the Russian mob is no different than him doing business with the US mob. Does that mean that the US gov is cahoots with Trump inc.? I have no use for Trump, but I have even less use for lying press and intel personnel. To continue to believe in the ‘Russians did it’ crap at this point, points to bias and not intelligence or common sense. VIPS has stated that the so-called Russian tampering never happened, no more that the so-called Russian hacking of DNC, which turned out to be an inside job. But who would know that if one had to go by the bought and paid for MSM? If one had to make an inference, go after Hillary in connection with the Uranium deal. The Russian crap is a red herring to continue to undermine Trump, which is overkill as Trump is doing a fine job of it all by himself.

You underestimate your own disdain for Mockingbird Media and the Deep State actor that surround him. He talks like anybody does, it’s just that MSM — Mockingbird State Media — always frames it for you, and even lies about it. Look at 98 Imperial state lackeys in the Senate that voted for those atrocious “sanctions” against Russia. They’re drunk on what they think is omnipotence in today’s world.

We know and Comey knew, Team HRC obstructed justice, with emails under subpoena getting erased two days after Team HRC received it.

Comey also complicit.

We already knew he gave out immunity to FIVE members of Team HRC with nothing in return, nothing!

We know that Comey’s FBI allowed the campaign under investigation get its own hired company to investigate the Campaign servers and give a “nothing to see here” report back to the FBI. When did the FBI ever do that with anybody else under investigation?

And no Grand Jury?! With ZERO evidence that any crime had been committed by Trump or even team, much less collusion with anybody, Mueller has rushed in with Grand Juries and trying to scare victims of this witch hunt into turning on Trump. And now

But look at this, Comey leaks his own confidential CYA notes relating to official duties IN THE HOPES OF FORCING A SPECIAL PROSECUTOR.

AND NOW, we find out that Comey wrote up his famous Not Guilty speech BEFORE DOING MOST OF THE “INVESTIGATION”!!

aquadraht

September 2, 2017 at 6:45 pm

It is more than doubtful that Trump’s statements towards Comey in the Flynn case constitute anything even remotely close to “obstruction of justice” other than in a totalitarian state. Other than many statements of Clapper, Hillary Clinton, and Loretta Lynch, the statements about meetings with Russians (which are not illegal at all) were at best inaccurate, but no open lies (in the Clapper case before the Senate, and Obama chose to obstruct justice by exonerating lying Clapper). In fact, there is not even a substantial suspicion about Trump engaging in money laundering so far. And the buyer was no “Russian government official”, and even the Seattle Times admits that the buyer eventually made a profit from his purchase. Why he overpaid, who knows? Maybe he was cheating the Russian fiscus. Billionaires do that, at times.

So I see nothing than fake news, and conspiracy theories.

But nothing of all that blunder invalidates any of the arguments Robert Parry, or the VIPS, did present. So this is nothing than “whataboutism”, and poor one.

Robert Golden

September 2, 2017 at 10:51 pm

It’s not just what he said abount Comey, and it’s not just that he asked Comey to stop the investigation, before he fired him, and it’s not just that he fired Comey, and it’s not just that Pence lied about why Comey was fired, and it’s not just that Trump admitted on television that he fired Comey over Russia, and it’s not just that he wanted other intelligence officials to stop the Russian investigation, and it’s not just he leaned on Sessions, and it’s not just that he spent 150M taxpayer money on a fireworks show in Syria, without any strategic coherence and/or consequence (other than trying to distract attention from the Russian investigation and try to prove he’s not in bed w/Russia), and it’s not just that he laid down in Syria, and it’s not just that Manifort ran his campaign, and said he was glad when Putin sent 700 US employees packing…it’s the whole pattern that constitutes the need for an investigation. All these events happened in front of everyone’s eyes, so 1) An investigation is warranted and 2) Generally when their is this much smoke there is also a fire. As far as money laundering and other legalities or illegalities let’s pat patience and the AG of New York and Mueller develop their case.

My money is on guilty on all the obvious counts, and much more than just the obvious. So much lying, story telling, and covering up. Then there are all the conflicts of interest, and no tax returns.

Look at the guys cabinet! Mercers and Kochs put Trump in office, but they have sound reasons: Kochs want to bring their Canadian tar sands to Houston, to ship out to China, and don’t care if people lose their drinking water along the way, or Houston blows up. Everything Trump has done so far benefits them. Mercers want to win their 7B tax case with the government, for their firm, and continue trading stocks, while having key operatives in the oval office. He’s in line to get a big tax break from Trump too. What does Robert Perry have to say about this?

Music of Ebony

September 3, 2017 at 12:37 am

So you want more war in Syria?If you think any dealings with Russia is treason and if they are our enemy I hope you have the decency to enlist if a hot war comes. Lastly the diplomat expulsion in Moscow didn’t happen in a vacuum. We expelled their diplomats first and we put sanctions on them. How can we have the nerve to expect to be able to have more diplomats in Russia then Russian diplomats in the US.

Bobby’s probably upset that the Oded Yinon Plan in Syria has been thwarted, and the Israelis won’t be ‘redeeming’ Damascus as he had hoped.

Homer Jay

September 3, 2017 at 9:01 am

I think Mr. Parry would agree that we need an objective investigation, and not the presumption of guilt that me have now. Mr. Comey and others in the FBI accepted Crowdstrike’s investigation of the DNC server despite the fact that the CFO, Dmitri Alperovitch is a board member on the anti-Russian think tank The Atlantic Council. Therefore this is not an objective investigation. Such an investigation would explore dissenting views offered by VIPS and the Seth Rich case. Furthermore, an independent unbiased investigation would not site as evidense RT reporting on Occupy Wall Street. I mean this is Iraq WMDs 2.0. There has never been any doubt that Trump has shady dealings with Russian oligarchs, perhaps he doesn’t want these dealings to be revealed. Perhaps he knows that it doesn’t matter if he is guilty of collusion, that when the groupthink says it is true (like with WMDs) than it is and it doesn’t matter what the facts are. In the end the president had the right to fire Mr. Comey and Trump also said he was frustrated about the illegal leaks and that Mr. Comey would not investigate these leaks even though he asked. The point is Trump had plenty of reason to want to rid of Comey, related to the “Russia thing,” which do not necessarily indicate his guilt.

John I agree that Trump is beholden to the 1%, but if we are going to begin to hold politicians accountable for how their business ties are subverting our democracy, then we should first take a hard look within our own borders. What the Podesta emails showed was that Goldman Sachs delivered a list of cabinet appointees for Obama after he won the ’08 election and Obama then followed their command.

I think we need to avoid this binary way of thinking, that if you dispute the witch hunt against Trump then you are his friend or his supporter. Or as I see on this site, when there is a negative article on Trump, the response is “At least he is not Clinton!” They were both awful, and the American people and the world are the victims of a failure in all major institutions, political, media, military, and ecomonic.

We need to remember there is an objective reality and to ignore this because we believe that impeaching Trump is the only thing that matters is to fool ourselves in the extreme. Let’s remember that prior to Trump we were already on a course of the planet’s destruction either by way of conventional/nuclear warfare or climate dysfunction.

Homer Jay

September 3, 2017 at 9:08 am

Correction: Dmitri Alporovitch is the CTO at Crowdstrike., not the CFO. Considering the material being investigated this only makes the arguement of bias even more clear.

Skip Scott

September 4, 2017 at 10:42 am

Homer Jay-

Another correction- It was Citigroup that picked Obama’s ’08 cabinet. Also if we are to consider insidious foreign influence on elected officials, let’s take a good hard look at Israel.

DFC

September 3, 2017 at 11:10 am

Generally when their is this much smoke there is also a fire. lol

Since Bill and Hillary Clinton left the White House in 2001, they have turned political fame into a personal fortune, raking in more than $240 million, according to a FORBES analysis of 15 years of their tax returns.

[forbes]

How do two public servants and charity operators accumulate this kind of cash? What do they make, what industry are they in? There might be some smoke over at the Trump camp, meanwhile there is a Fukushima style meltdown on the Democrat side. The Democrat scam logic goes like this.

1] If Hillary loses the election, that will punishment enough – no investigation or prosecution. *Trump-Russia investigation is a fail safe.

2] If Hillary wins the election, Loretta Lynch & James Comey will be heading the DOJ & FBI, and won’t investigate or prosecute themselves.

Message to the American people: If you are a Democrat, you can break whatever laws you like when running for President, win or lose, there will be no consequences as we control the MSM, FBI & DOJ.

exiled off mainstreet

September 3, 2017 at 8:25 pm

That is what it looks like to me. Parry’s article cannot be refuted except via falsity and propagandistic sophistries. Apologists for this corrupt system exposed by these articles remind me of apologists for historically totalitarian systems. The actions of the Nation Magazine, following their publication of an article corroborating the falsity of the Russia story are also reminiscent of Soviet self-criticism. Those implying that the logical endpoint of the whole false Russia narrative is armageddon are accurate, and simple assurances that nobody wants this result won’t wash based on the real facts of the matter.

While Trump is a fool in many ways, he was correct in opposing the deep state Russia obsession. It now appears that the power structure was simply too powerful. Those pointing out the bipartisan war crimes of Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen and elsewhere have plenty of irrefutable factual evidence to back up their views. Those defending this structure are either naive or complicit.

CitizenOne

September 3, 2017 at 11:24 pm

What do I have to say about the “guilty” verdict your “money” is on. You said it best. “So much lying, story telling and coverup. Then there are all the conflicts of interest, and no tax returns.”

So why don’t you focus on that plus gerrymandering and electronic voter fraud and Comey’s reopening of the Hillary Clinton investigation days before the election? Why do you choose to support a proxy Russian enemy instead of focusing on what you complain about?

You have taken the bait. What the NY Times and other “news” outlets have done is to completely suffocate any of what you complain about with a Russian Boogey Man. All the facts surrounding the Kochs and the influence of dark money or the disastrous SCOTUS decisions in Citizens United or McCutcheon vs. FEC are not getting one minute of air time because these are the real reasons for the election. The election was stolen at home by billionaires and by the media. No foreign power needs to be invoked.

What the NY Times is engaged with is DISTRACTION! There is no foreign power responsible for the corruption here at home. Such propaganda is the currency of tin pot dictators all over the World. The blaming of some foreign power is the oldest play in the playbook of corrupt governments and you are falling for it.

Perhaps you will accomplish lancing the boil but you are living in a leper colony and until you realize that you and I and everyone else will continue to face a future filled with contagious disease fueled by propaganda designed to lure us away from the true root causes for our dysfunctional democracy.

The Russian plot emerged instantly upon the election win by Trump as if it was a preconceived plan. It was. The Tea Party was. There is an operational plan by the media and the people who control the media, government and finance to forge a story surrounding every inevitable consequence of their money grab to forge some new political movement which herds us all along some path through the forest which inevitably leads sheep to support the efforts of the ones in control.

Do you like being a sheep? Donald Trump won because the media gave him three billion dollars in free advertising. Why not focus on that? Why not focus on why they propped him up against the 14 other Republicans? Ask Les Moonvies the CEO of CBS. He told his investors why he did it. To make money. Pure and simple.

That is what the media does. It makes piles of cash out of creating disasters. The NY Times might and in fact does often opine that the role of journalism and news reporting is enshrined in some overarching search for the truth but in reality it is only concerned with making money and preserving the means it uses to make money and coming up with convenient excuses (The Russians) to deflect blame in order to hide the actual means they use to make piles of money.

In the case of the last election this resulted from the aforementioned SCOTUS landmark decisions of Citizens United and McCutcheon vs. FEC which meant they could extort the republican super PACs by putting Trump in front of a camera and a microphone and waiting with bated breath for the response ads to roll in.

The media cleaned up and we got Trump. Now the media is off on the latest tangent to blame some foreign enemy.

You should indeed focus on all of the real reasons you outlined but also you should expand those reasons to the problem of the media and also you should not let them off the hook (any of them) by convincing us that somehow the Russians or Martians are responsible for what just happened. All of the blame and all of the actors are right here at home apparently successfully beguiling people such as yourself.

Thank you Robert Parry for being a tireless and motivated investigational journalist who sheds light on the coverups of the media and government which have once again fooled almost all the people.

The article that you link to on CNN is quoting a bit of sarcasm, that’s why the word ‘thankful’ is in quotes. Do you really not even understand sarcasm?

incontinent reader

September 7, 2017 at 8:59 pm

Such inanities rival the those of the NY Times for which Mr. Parry has done so well in holding the Times accountable. I suggest you get your facts straight and think logically before you pile supposition upon supposition, though from the gist of your argument those might not be a priority for you.

It you had been reading carefully the series of articles in CN concerning Russia-Gate you would have come to the conclusion that the Russia-Gate issue and Trump’s dealings with Russian oligarchs are two separate issues. Russia-Gate was centered around the alleged Russian interference in the American election with particular regard to the Wikileaks e-mails that revealed embarrassing manipulations by the DNC to get Hillary Clinton nominated in the Democratic primary. The accusation charged that the revelations were based on a dubious Russian hack whereas the VIPS report proved that it was a leak. The accusation was an obvious canard to begin with, since it deflected from the real threat to the electoral process posed by the DNC’s blatant rigging(about which there appears to be NO investigation). What Trump did in his real estate dealings with some Russian oligarch is of NO relevance to this issue. For that matter you might as well investigate any U.S. congressman(pick one at random)and you’re likely to find influence peddling and a quid pro quo of much greater threat to the electoral process. I suggest you go back to CN’s archives and read carefully, unless of course, you’re a troll with a mission to disrupt the website.

Incidentally, the above remarks should in no way be interpreted as a defense of Trump’s self-serving actions. My low opinion of him hasn’t changed, but when he’s attacked for the wrong reasons he tends to rise above his assailants.

Homer Jay

September 3, 2017 at 9:48 am

Bob, Thank you for your comment, you really got to the meat of the issue, especially when you mention there is no investigation into the DNC’s blatant rigging. Amazing that we spend all our time talking about a scandal with no physical evidence while ignoring another scandal where the evidence was published in Wikileaks. The misdirection campaign by the DNC has been effective in convincing people that Russia gave us Trump, when really it was the DNC by rigging the process for the wrong candidate.

And it is a very poor relection on the state of affairs, that you felt the need to clarify that you are not defending Trump. But that is the world we live in

Thanks Homer,…I didn’t mean to lay into Robert. Sometimes It’s hard to tell when someone is a troll and even when they are I think it’s important to keep the language civil. His subsequent remarks indicate he may simply have had misgivings about Trump which I share but I can’t help from getting annoyed when Russia-gate is conflated with the DNC’s heinous conduct.

Anon

September 2, 2017 at 6:58 pm

You have no point, just the same sort of list of nothings that go nowhere:
Those investigations are proceeding, despite having found nothing in a full year, so you have no point there.
The absurd notion of a “meeting with Russians” has been long debunked: no evidence of any political deals.
If there were evidence of money laundering, there would be charges by now.
The truth is, Mr. Golden, that you prefer the zionist Pence if you can’t have the zionist Clinton.

Because he is afraid the investigation will lead to real crimes like tax evasion and money laundering, which seems to be what is happening now.

Robert Golden

September 2, 2017 at 11:09 pm

Aren’t lying on federal disclosure forms, obstruction of justice, and false statements under under oath “real crimes” too? What about conflicts of interest? Money laundering? Being compromised? What about gross negligence?

ScottB

September 3, 2017 at 3:03 am

Leslie:

Real crimes. You jest.

The real crimes are the “pay-for-play” schemes, regime building, fiat currency and debt creation, CIA’s role in drug smuggling, facisim, etc. all of which are contorted and obfuscated by a corrupt MSM controlled by the same.

Cognitive dissonance, anyone? Or are you spewing counter propaganda?

Robert Golden

September 3, 2017 at 12:57 pm

Let’s look at debt creation. This has been the Republican blueprint since 1980, when our national debt, income, and wealth inequality started to grow, by leaps and bounds. It’s a very simple formula. You reduce taxes and government revenue, increase defense spending, and start wars. To the extent you can’t drop the rates on the .01% and 1% fast enough, you create a lot of tax loopholes.

Yes, Trump wants to follow this blueprint too. However he has only been able to cut environmental regulations. The Kochs stand to benefit bigly, from Keystone, and he got some big donations from pipeline and coal industry too, but this is how R’s shift the tax burden on the rest of us. Take deregulated Houston for example. The Texas Governor estimates 200 billion to “rebuild”. Trump wants a corporate flat tax of 15%, so who is going to pay the 200B? Or maybe they will just add it to the debt? Either way, it is a tax. Not as big of a tax as the Iraq War (6 T) or the Great Recession (20T), but let’s blame Obama for all that. Here we go again…

“…why has Trump and his admin risked crossing the line on obstruction of justice? Why have they lied and covered up about firing FBI Director Comey, and/or their meeting with Russians?”

It turns out that there are solid and compelling explanations for every specific allegation that has been hurled against the wall by the anti-Trump media. You perception that Trump has lied and covered up regarding his Russian connections is a total media construct and without basis in actual reality. Do billionaires routinely break all kinds of laws and engage in unsavory and malfeasant activity? Of course they do, but this is a far cry from the allegations of collusion with a foreign government to rig an election.

Joe Tedesky

September 2, 2017 at 11:24 pm

Robert, when my wife first heard about the Russian home buyer buying Donald Trump’s place in Florida for 3 times what Trump had paid for it originally, she thought it outrageous also. That was until I reminded her, of how our place in Florida that we purchased back in 2009 after the ‘Great Recession’, and of how we paid 90k for it, that’s how bad the market had crashed back then, but over the years our Florida property has now a market value of 230k. She said, but we didn’t sell it to a Russian with strings attached. Then I said, and what were those strings attached too. Then she smiled, and said, I just don’t like Trump.

Robert, I will tell you what I told my wife, go ahead and hate Trump all you want, but leave the Russians out of it. Even my doubting wife, has come around to realize that this constant MSM barrage of implications made against Trump over Russia-Gate is lacking of any real evidence. I seriously don’t believe that Putin was behind any election fraud scheme to unbalance our U.S. Democracy. Trump may have done something with some Russian oligarchs, but still Robert even at best to prosecute Trump we still need evidence. To be honest Robert, this Russia-Gate witch hunt is a smokeless fire, and where there’s no smoke there is no fire.

Keep posting comments Robert, because we Americans should talk this out. We don’t have to see everything eye to eye, and who knows what influences we may all have on each other, but we need to keep speaking our minds, and we seriously need to calmly debate, and not hate each other, as we all travel along this rugged road. Joe

Brad Owen

September 3, 2017 at 7:22 am

Hi Joe. He, and others (unfortunately from my side of the political aisle) play right into the hands of the war criminals and oligarchs who lust for war with Russia, to destroy any alternative to the unstoppable failure of the we$tern financial system. They see it is Game-Over for them so the oligarchs select for another DarkAge and massive die-off, rather than collapsing into permanent defeat and leaving the World Stage to the Eurasian Quarter.

Robert Golden

September 3, 2017 at 2:32 pm

No one is lusting for a war with Russia. That would only end in mutually assured destruction.

Brad Owen

September 3, 2017 at 4:10 pm

The Western Oligarchs history teaches them that they can rise Phoenix-like from the ashes, from their protected positions, and reclaim reign. They did this in the fall of the Roman Empire, with the surviving Oligarchs retreating to the swamps of Venice, through the Dark Age centuries, undermining the Byzantines, Charlemagne, emigrating to Netherlands, from there to England, to reclaim three quarters of the World as their Empire, via the various European Empires. You don’t know what you’re up against, and it’s naive to think they are not seriously plotting the downfall and dismantling of the Russian Federation,and the People’s Republic of China. That is the endgame of this “Russia did it” nonsense. They will not stop of their own accord. Their own financial collapse, BEFORE they can execute their plans, is the only thing that will stop them. And this is what will happen.

W. Spencer

September 4, 2017 at 8:45 am

Well then, what are you lusting for if not a war with Russia?

Guy St Hilaire

September 3, 2017 at 1:21 pm

Well said Joe.Spoken like a true humanitarian and I hope representative of many Americans.On another note Joe, you are lucky that your wife did finally see the light of Russia gate .Mine still refuses and I am afraid she never will .Makes for a lot of quiet times.

Joe Tedesky

September 4, 2017 at 1:05 pm

Thanks Guy. You know all I am saying is, we Americans should resist falling into this Putin demonization project. I can’t see anything good coming of it. It is common knowledge in the international community that the U.S. has Russia surrounded with weapons of mass destruction. The likelihood of Putin being the next Gaddafi, or Saddam Hussein, is very real. Go after Trump all you want, but please don’t turn this into an international crisis of the kind which will lead to war with Russia. If this were to happen America’s global military would be stretched too thin to do battle in all of the hotspots which would arrive, if such matters were to get that so far out of hand. Trust me, if the U.S. goes after Russia militarily, this war will be global.

As far as my wife goes, she reacts to the MSM news with a knee jerk. A pretty knew jerk, but still a knee jerk reaction, that is until she bumps into me. Over this pass year many around me think I’ve become a Trump supporter when I relate to my feelings of this Russia-Gate nonsense. I’m not a fan of the Donald, I swear, but I don’t much like the idea of confronting the Russians nor the Chinese for that matter, not when we could create an era of detente with these two countries. This world has gotten to small for war.

Thanks for the reply Guy, now go kiss the wife, and tell her not to believe everything that Rachel reports. Joe

Robert Golden

September 3, 2017 at 2:39 pm

Joe, the Florida property was one example. The majority of Trump condos have been sold to shell corporations, and or Russians who would not qualify for a loan.

That was an interesting piece to read. It surprises me that with all of the Russian mafia connections Trump skirted along with, that the FBI didn’t bring the Donald down. What concerns me the most Robert, is that the timing of all this Russian intrigue is wrapped around Hillary’s loss, and the exposure she received from the Wikileaks reports. I am a Seth Richer truther, and I don’t believe the Russians hacked Hillary. I can only say this, that if Trump was doing something illegal with the Russian mobsters, then he should be charged with the crime of money laundering. I would also advise that we should be careful not to start an international crisis, by continuing to blame Vladimir Putin for crimes we have no evidence with to charge him with for any wrongdoing. That’s all, keep it simple, don’t start a war over it.

Thanks for the link, and thank you again for keeping our conversation civil. I bring this up, because I fear we Americans are losing each other over stupid mean spirited debates. Our greatest asset is if we can keep our calm to speak rationally, and yet not sell out our values when trying to do so.

If Awan Affair is the greatest breach in national cybersecurity, then why Wasserman Shultz is not in a federal prison yet? Why such a slow pace of investigating the Seth Rich death? Why Mueller, known for his incompetence, is in charge of any investigation at all? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/conflicts-of-interest-and-ethics-robert-mueller-and_us_5936a148e4b033940169cdc8
Why none of the US war criminals who had agitated successfully for the illegal Iraq war has been executed? ($6 trillions and counting)
Why Obama and Clinton, both guilty of war crimes in Libya and Syria, are not in prison for the crimes against humanity?

You could add, GWB and Cheney, to your wondering why they aren’t in The Hague for crimes against humanity. There is a reason populism is rising in this country – we don’t trust the news agencies or Washington politicians. In Washington, they put together a congressional panel to question a perceived guilty party, but nothing ever happens. Even if the person lies under oath. Nothing happens.

It doesn’t matter which political party is running the show. It’s a giant fraud held together by lots of propaganda.

As Robert points out, real journalism in Washington would destroy the frauds we see daily on the news. Why can’t journalists question politicians about their donors? If you’re asking a politician about health care, don’t you think it’s pertinent to know how much they’re being bribed by the healthcare lobby in all its forms?

If you want a legitimate investigation in Washington, you bring in someone from the outside who isn’t part of the revolving door.

As far as I’m concerned, the whole Washington Establishment is a fraud. However, it doesn’t make me “anti-government”. Without a strong independent central government, Oligarchs will rule this country. Like it does now.

Ol' Hippy

September 3, 2017 at 2:33 pm

Because as Bush I said back in 2-2-’91, on NBC news, “what we say, goes”; like, they’re above the law. There’s a whole shitload of them that should be serving life terms in a federal supermax. But then whose going to be the ones to get the whole ball rolling? We average folks just have to accept this fucked up mess the best we can, I’m just hoping they don’t cut my SS disability.

Robert, it would have been nice if Comey did an investigation and empaneled a Grand Jury, but…Media was set ablaze after bombshell documents released on Thursday show former FBI head James Comey exonerated Hillary Clinton before the investigation into her email conduct had concluded. Even more concerning is “Mr. Comey even circulated an early draft statement to select members of senior FBI leadership,” reports Townhall.

A new litmus test I have for purportedly liberal-left-progressive writers and commentators (we already know the centrist, neo-con Stephanopopolis and McCain sycophant types are already heavily on board the dangerous group-think): Do they reflexively fall for the military-Zio-media industrial complex’s narrative about it essentially being a done deal that the Kremlin “hacked” or otherwise interfered in the ’16 election. Even if they give it a subtle passing mention that ostensibly lends real credibility to the propaganda talking points, they’re immediately suspect in my book. I’m taking names and will never forget those who knuckled under when needed most.

Sam F

September 2, 2017 at 7:42 pm

Yes, the 2016 election was Israel-gate; the cover-up is fake news of “Russia-gate” drowning out the truth.

Clinton’s top ten donors were all zionists, the DNC is exclusively zionist, and zionists control nearly all mass media, both directly and via ad agencies and corporate advertisers. The sole reason for US wars in the Mideast is zionist bribes to Congress and zionist control of mass media. The evidence is copious, whereas there is no evidence at all for the fake news about Russia. The absence of Israel-gate stories is a litmus test of zionist control of media and commentators.

The failure to end zionist corruption is treason by the US political gangs of both parties, and the failure to report Israel-gate is treason of the zionist mass media. They are the enemies of America, the tyrants posing with the flag, stealing our taxes, and lying daily to the people of the United States..

Robert Golden

September 2, 2017 at 11:33 pm

I guess Exxon-Mobil, Chevron, American defense contractors and Cheney are Zionists too? No wonder you are incensed about the Iraq War. That 6 T spent +++ all went to help the Jews? Or none of it went to help the Jews. Exactly how were they helped? Exactly who will profit from Iraq’s oil? Do some basic research. The last time I checked the USA was predominantly a Christian country. Maybe your crusade was as misplaced as the Bush-Cheney war?

You ignore all of the evidence, Mr. Golden, but few readers here are so naive.
You don’t know that the goal of Israel to break the Iran/Iraq/Syria/Lebanon “crescent” was served by the Iraq II war, as well as the war in Syria?
You don’t know that zionist Wolfowitz appointed zionist agents Perl, Wurmser, and Feith to DIA/CIA/NSA to fake up WMD “evidence?
You don’t know that US oil companies got no special deals on oil from Iraq afterward?
You don’t know that US policy does not reflect population proportions of major religions?
At best you have not done “basic research” beyond propaganda sources that agree with you.

Joe Tedesky

September 4, 2017 at 1:19 pm

George Marshall knew what priorities of our American interest were circumvented when Truman accepted the Israeli campaign contributions, for his 1948 run for president. Backing Israel was never in America’s best interest. Instead America signed on to make a ‘Clean Break’ and to further enforce the ‘Yinon Plan’.

Drew Hunkins

September 3, 2017 at 6:55 pm

A top Pentagon analyst and Air Force colonel, Karen Kwiatkowski, testified that during the months leading up to the attack on Iraq Israeli military officials and Israeli intelligence officers had daily access to the leading Zionist officials in the Pentagon. The major Zion-Cons in Washington who drummed up the war on Iraq, some of whom even created their own ‘Office of Special Plans’, were players like Wolfowitz, Feith, Shulsky, Frum, Perle, and Fleischer. The frequent consultation and intelligence coordination between top Zion-Cons in the Pentagon and top Israeli military operatives in the U.S. indicates there was close agreement in directing the U.S. to invade Iraq.

It’s important to note that oil companies were not actively supporting the drive for war via propaganda or congressional lobbying. It was the leading pro-Israel Jewish organizations during the pre-war time period that produced over 8,000 articles and opinion pieces of pro-Iraq war propaganda and circulated it to all its member organizations, every Congressperson, and every top member of the executive branch. In contrast, a review of every issue of the Financial Times in the year leading to the run up to the war finds not a single article or letter by any spokesperson or representative of an oil company calling for the invasion or occupation of Iraq. If anything major oilmen expressed fear that an Israeli-instigated war on Iraq would destabilize the entire Middle East.

The Zionist Power Configuration in America desperately wanted to destroy Iraq because it provided the greatest political support to the Palestinian resistance. Iraq also stood in the way of Israel’s desire to rid itself of any perceived threat to its expansionist, occupational policies in the Middle East. Iraq under Hussein also tweaked Israeli paranoia; Israeli paranoia always being one of the most dangerous dynamics in the world today.

The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, ADL, and AIPAC (The Zionist Power Configuration in America) pressed the case for the Iraq war and won the day despite big oil’s misgivings.

For further reading see the books and essays by such luminaries as Jeffrey Blankfort, Alison Weir, James Petras, Paul Findley and Mearsheimer and Walt.

Joe Tedesky

September 4, 2017 at 9:39 am

“Leftist war critic Andrew Cockburn assessed the divergent opinions among the elite in mid-January 2005. “The political establishment is split,” Cockburn noted. James Baker certainly speaks for the oil industry, and most of corporate America thinks America has problems far more pressing than Iraq. The libertarian, and old conservative wing of the Republican Party has never liked this war. But the Israel lobby, which pitched the war to Bush and got America into it, is still deeply committed and retains considerable power both in the government, the Congress and the paragovernment of Institutes, Centers and Think-tanks that throttle Washington like kudzu.”

The Transparent Cabal: the Neoconservative Agenda, War in the Middle East, and the National Interest of Israel” by Stephen J Sniegoski

Sam F

September 5, 2017 at 4:39 pm

Having read Alison Weir, Paul Findley, Mearsheimer and Walt, and others, I will look for Blankfort, Petras, and Sniegoski. Thank you both.

Roy G Biv

September 11, 2017 at 8:50 pm

Good luck Robert. This site has been corrupted by Putin apologists and anti zionists. My comments get deleted if even allowed posting for 5 minutes. Admire your logic though

Drew Hunkins

September 3, 2017 at 2:40 am

Great analysis. What I resent is being branded an anti-Semite for having the temerity to point out much of what you astutely address in your post. Or if they don’t reflexively brand one an anti-Semite they deem one an obsessive who’s suffering from tunnel vision or myopia for dwelling on the overwhelming power of the Zionist Power Configuration in America.

Sam F

September 3, 2017 at 10:13 am

Yes, the notion of anti-semitism is aggressive propaganda because
1. Semites include Arab as well as Jewish groups, so the term is incorrect;
2. no other group that demands a special word for discrimination against itself, and then pretends that it is a unique phenomenon not susceptible to rational analysis, but only their pronunciations;
3. zionists use this unique term to denounce anyone who will not agree to their demands for privileges;
4. there is no racism in denouncing zionists as the racists they truly are.

Their claim of a right to an empire in the mideast is absurd, because:
1. there are no more living survivors of the Jewish disasters of WWII to gain thereby;
2. a Jewish homeland was not a sensible method of helping Jewish survivors;
3. Palestine was the worst place in the world to choose for a Jewish homeland, due to opposition;
4. no one deserves an empire, even when their ancestors had one there;
5. everyone’s ancestors had empires there, as there were doubtless thousands of empires there in the million or so years in which all of our ancestors migrated through N Africa from our common origins in SE Africa;

Their claims to special privileges in the US seek:
1. to control US foreign policy to dump money on Israel as “aid”;
2. to control US mass media so that nearly everyone accepts zionist lies about the Mideast and special privileges;
3. to control nearly every US politician through bribes, like those of the top ten donors to Clinton;
4. to rent the US military for nothing to kill millions of innocents in the Mideast to benefit themselves;
5. to terminate democracy in the US for the advantage of one of the most racist groups in history.

Sam F,… thanks for a well founded articulation of the facts. I guess my original hunch was correct…R.G. must be a troll.
The ruse to presume you are only talking about Jews as zionists i.e. “I guess Exxon-Mobil, Chevron, American defense contractors and Cheney are Zionists too?” is an obvious trap meant to infer anti-semitism.

ScottB

September 3, 2017 at 3:47 am

Yes, great analysis. But I must add what is perhaps the main reason for our involvement in the Middle East which aligns with some objectives of with the Zionist state. Namely, control.

When Nixon unilaterally cancelled convertibility of the US dollar to gold, he established oil as the foundation of the US dollar (“petrodollars”). Control over oil trade became Washington’s #1 foreign policy objective.

The original US invasion of Afghanistan can perhaps be credited with the US losing a major pipeline project. Likewise, the number of US military engagements in the Middle East and other oil producing regions sharply increased. Petrodollars have become the basis for US domination over the global financial system – forcing countries to buy dollars to purchase oil on the international market. In turn, this provides the US with a financial profit while worldwide demand for US dollars is held high allowing the US to refinance its debt at very low interest rates as well as export inflation.

[As an aside, the petrodollar was one of the enabling factors of modern finance – it extended the tail of the yield curve beyond 30 years or so by including the oil assets (long term leases, etc.) of western multinational oil corporations. By extending the tail to 100 years+, this served to provide additional stability to short- and intermediate-term systemic shocks].

Sam F

September 3, 2017 at 9:44 am

While I am not an economist, I see no basis for the notion of the “petrodollar” for several reasons:
1. Oil is not a medium of exchange, nor held in reserve against currency demands;
2. Producers of all products can invest their money where they please, so the dollar’s exchange rate is no more dependent upon oil than other commodities;
3. The US can buy oil from whomever has it, like everyone else, and we do not get lower pricing;
4. Venezuela and Indonesia do not dictate US policies although very large producers of oil;
5. The “petrodollar” notion is raised by zionists and the MIC for zionist demands, not other policies;
6. If DC really wanted control of oil it would have invaded Saudi Arabia instead of Iraq.
So I presume that US oil companies want to protect specific contracts but not US interests.

Sam F

September 3, 2017 at 10:03 am

(7) US policy has opposed the major Shiite oil producers (Iran, Iraq, etc.).

Joe Tedesky

September 3, 2017 at 10:54 am

What if the U.S. Government were to nationalize the oil industry, and the defense industry, to pay down the national debt?

Sam F

September 3, 2017 at 12:18 pm

A very interesting idea, which would help obstruct oligarchy control of Congress.
We also need to isolate the mass media and election funding from economic control.

It is a big problem for Western governance to be sure .You have spelled it out very well .And for those that would jump on the anti Semitic card right away ,zionists are not only of the Judaic faith , there are plenty of so-called christians that are just as rabid.Dual citizenship should be outlawed just like all the free trips to Israel for the congress critters .
Senatorial and congress seats should be on a 2 term basis only .At least then it would harder to be bought.

Jiri

September 2, 2017 at 5:59 pm

It has rarely happened that a rich country will die of stupidity. The US will be among the first.

Martin - Swedish citizen

September 3, 2017 at 2:16 am

It looks like it. It is sad that the EU and among them my country gladly follow suit.

Martin - Swedish citizen

September 3, 2017 at 2:26 am

Fact:
1. The Democratic Party interfered in their election process to have Mrs Clinton elected. No one seems bothered.
2. The US state and media with all their resources have spent a year trying to prove Russian interference and come up with nada.
This at least is what it looks like.

Peter Loeb

September 3, 2017 at 7:41 am

DEAR MARTIN OF SWEDEN:

How many readers know that in Sweden Sweden it is the party
that nominates the candidate for Prime Minister and other
Ministers?

Variations of this process can be found in many (a majority) of other
European nations.

The result re: the nomination of Hillary Clinton in 2016 would
have been basically the same.

—Peter Loeb, Boston, MA, USA

Martin - Swedish citizen

September 3, 2017 at 5:50 pm

Dear Peter,
I don’t expect readers on this forum to know how the Prime minister is appointed in Sweden.
On the other hand, I am convinced that most citizens of Sweden do know. The Speaker of parliament proposes who should be Prime minister, at the same time mentioning which parties support him or her. Then parliament decides by voting. Before elections, in practice, parties state which coalition of parties they support, and who should be prime minister, should they win. Parties, consequently, determine the possible candidates, usually the leaders of the biggest parties. The parties have their own procedures for choosing leaders, so insofar as that the parties choose their candidates, you are right that there is a parallel.
Do you mean that the internal democratic party election process of Mrs Clinton was fair? If it was, I apologise for having misunderstood the situation.

Bart in VA

September 3, 2017 at 6:50 pm

Martin, it was not fair. The leaked emails showed that.

Ol' Hippy

September 3, 2017 at 2:43 pm

Fact, never mentioned, there are two classes of people in the US, those that are above the law and those that are. To break it down further, there are two more classes; those that can afford to pay for a good defense and those that end up in our prisons, in a revolving door of perpetual in and out of incarceration. So, when one enters the system, when they get out there’s no way to find gainful employment and resort to crime to live. That’s the US “justice” system; there’s never any real correctional means that will allow them to be ‘real’ members of society.

Ol' Hippy

September 3, 2017 at 2:45 pm

There’s no way to edit, in the first line the second ‘are’ should read; are not

If you hit the page re-load button on your browser, an edit screen will come up with your post and give you 5 minutes to edit at will.

Sr. Gibbonk

September 2, 2017 at 6:17 pm

Mr. Parry opens his piece with “It is a basic rule from Journalism 101 that when an allegation is in serious doubt – or hasn’t been established as fact – you should convey that uncertainty to your reader by using words like “alleged” or “purportedly.” But The New York Times and pretty much the entire U.S. news media have abandoned that principle in their avid pursuit of Russia-gate.”
Of course they have because their intent is not to present accurate information but to persuade. Allen Dulles must be smiling in his grave.

Robert Golden

September 2, 2017 at 11:42 pm

Mr. Trump and his admin can well afford legal defense, and are innocent until proven guilty. As POTUS he is also subject to impeachment. FYI, it has been only members of his own party and/or administration that have authorized the investigations. If these members think crimes have been committed, they are in a position to impeach him, and should, if the evidence warrants it. The R’s tried to impeach Clinton for lying about a blow job – an apparent crime without a victim. The things they are investigating about Trump present clear and present dangers to all Americans. No one wants to be robbed, cheated, and/or compromised.

Guy St Hilaire

September 3, 2017 at 1:43 pm

As so must Edward Bernays , the father of propaganda , must be smiling also.

mrtmbrnmn

September 2, 2017 at 6:26 pm

With the occasional exception of an engaging feature piece (i.e., a fairly recent NYT Magazine “celebrity” profile of the excellent and dynamic actor Michael K. Williams or more recently a riveting and well-reported news feature on the dramatic rise of syphilis in America’s heroin/opioid heartland), the NY Times has long since largely abdicated its journalistic obligation to conscientiously and fairly report and analyze the news of the day. From its Iraq WMD misreporting to its Ukraine untruths to the current no-end-in-sight PutinPutinPutin waterboarding of The Trump, it has become an unreadable, unreliable and irresponsible propaganda delivery device. Kudos to Robert Parry and others (alas not enough of them), for continually calling the NY Times out for its journalistic malpractice…

Robert Golden

September 2, 2017 at 11:45 pm

And thank god that most of the time the NY Times gets things right, and fulfills it’s obligations under the 1st amendment, while government does its work. Where would be be without any transparency?

Gregory Herr

September 3, 2017 at 8:53 am

What was the obligation when the Times shilled for the phony rationalizations that brought forth the immoral and devastatingly damaging invasion and occupation of Iraq?

Anon

September 3, 2017 at 12:34 pm

You are spreading infantile complacency for the zionist propaganda rag, seeking gains as a zionist.

Fred

September 3, 2017 at 3:50 pm

I thought it was satire, at first. But reading your other comments I realize you are serious. LOL

JOHN L. OPPERMAN

September 2, 2017 at 6:35 pm

Assuming the heated, outraged tons of Russian “hacking” is true, WHAT did they DO with it?
AT 84 I may have poor reading comprehension, but the only actual claim I’ve heard is the dirty ruskies reported the truths of US lies and conniving, otherwise known as ‘whistleblowing’.
Clearly cause to nuke ’em…

Garry Zelk

September 2, 2017 at 6:47 pm

Man, at 84 you have a lot more on the ball than most of the rest of America.

Robert Golden

September 2, 2017 at 11:49 pm

It’s called understanding history, and defending and improving our democracy. This is something people should want to do, at any age. Do you have children? Grand children? If so, I am sure you desire they live in a democracy, and have the right to have fair elections?

Gregory Herr

September 3, 2017 at 9:21 am

The subversion of representative government in the United States has nothing to do with the exposure of DNC in all its glorious machinations. Representatives government has (notice the past tense) been subverted by bribery, by the outlandish allowance of the unlimited use of big money power to game the entire system of campaign finance. On issue after issue it can readily be shown that what is “represented” in the halls of government has nothing to do with the wishes of general public constituencies, but is rather heavily tilted towards the interests of monied power-brokers. Legislation or policy is often virtually written by the lobbyists or financed think tanks and rubber-stamped by the bought-and-paid-for shills we refer to as Congress.
It should also be brought to your attention, Robert, that the process of voter registration and voting and vote tabulation has also been badly subverted to the point that we can’t even depend on voter access, voter rights, and accurate “counting” of votes. So where is this “democracy” you speak of?

Karen Lee

September 2, 2017 at 6:43 pm

The point of the NYT article on Durham is not that the Russians did it. That’s the bait. The point is that forensic analyses should be done in a number of questionable jurisdictions, and everything possible must be done to secure elections going forward. Voter purging was done in NC well before the election with Kobach’s algorithm. That voters were further suppressed by hacked e-poll books is not unimaginable. And it’s not clear it was the Russians.
Personally, I think purged voters should be notified. If someone is missing from the poll books, they should vote provisional AND be counted. And paper ballots — hand-marked, hand-counted in presence of reps of all parties at the polling place and again at vote central — are the most reliable.
But if it takes ‘the Russians did it’ to bring an outcry for decent election security, fair enough. Most of us over the age 30 were well trained to distrust ‘the soviets.’ Let’s get some good out of that!

Sam F

September 2, 2017 at 7:58 pm

Yes, hand-counted ballots are best.
There is no technical excuse for hackable election equipment: any vulnerability is deliberate.

But there is no excuse for electronic voting equipment, because its complexity ensures that insiders control the results. As a control system software engineer, I am certain that the voting machine companies can control the election results if they wish, even if there were bipartisan teams of engineers trying to prevent it, which is unlikely. Electronic voting is worse than foolish, it is certain tyranny.

If the machine producers did not control the results, then certainly they can train the partisan elections commissioners to do so.

Increasing and feeding the hatred of Russia to get election reform is not a good thing; it is a form of insane megalomania that thinks that all that matters is getting done one’s own pet domestic agenda, which justifies using immoral and false means of lies and empty accusations that ramp up the likelihood of was between the two major super powers.

Even so, it won’t happen. Why? Because where the election fraud took place was in the Democratic primary contest, which is where voter rolls were purged and perhaps tallies were flipped. No way will the powers that be investigate what could end up putting Wasserman-Shultz, Podesta, and maybe even Hillary Rodham Clinton herself all in prison. Why do you think the FBI didn’t immediately confiscate the DNC computers to do a full investigation? It’s because they didn’t want to find what they knew they’d find.

I am getting angrier and angrier at the establishment corporatist Democrats and their pet media with their drive to oust Trump in order to make it more certain they’ll be able to implement their Clinton Neo-Con imperialist agenda with willing Military Industrial Complex stooges like Pence or Ryan. I am angry and sad that cultural liberals are being manipulated into supporting this coup with their screaming about the #Resistance or wearing pink pussy hats or applauding Antifa beating up non-Nazi conservative free speech rallyists as if they were Nazis, because they must be Nazis since Trump is a Nazi.

Here’s what I resist. Impeaching Trump. I am still convinced the reality that Hillary Clinton is not in the White House is the best luck we could have had. If she had won we’d be arming the actual Nazis in Ukraine and probably there would be military advisers training them, we’d not have a truce in Syria but we’d be shooting down Russian planes, we’d have even more Russiagate nonsense and sanctions that make what we have now look like friendly relations, in fact we might actually already be at war with Russia, and we’d probably be getting ready to invade Venezuela under the guise of the right to protect and humanitarian intervention. Meanwhile all the horrid stuff Trump has done would also have been done, just with more liberal pleasing rhetoric.

Robert Golden

September 2, 2017 at 11:50 pm

Good point! Agreed.

tim

September 2, 2017 at 6:48 pm

corporate media is state media when the country is a corporate oligarchy.

Robert Golden

September 2, 2017 at 11:54 pm

Good point, but there are degrees, and people need to fight back. That’s why these investigations are so important. We are trying not to crown the fossil fuel industry, in the event they colluded with the Russians, and/or lied about.

liberal-progressives have become re-branded as a left to differentiate from conservative-regressives long identified as a right…this is to help separate two sides of the same coin so that well meaning and information starved americans can choose between polio or cancer and fail to notice they maintain a disease by simply moving from crippling to terminal and back until such time as terminal “wins”…thanks parry, for highlighting the disgraceful performance of established minority rule, as expressed in mainstream media and politics and most especially in “liberal-left-progressive” places like the Nation and the nytimes voice of the ruling class, an explanation of how and why a relatively small but growing movement of extremist bigotry can be made to seem like a menace – if only to the southern poverty law center if it vanishes -while hundreds of billions spent on war, tens of billions spent on pets, hundreds of thousands living in the street and millions living in poverty are, well, whadda ya gonna do, the market moves in strange ways…but oh yes, trump makes real estate deals and is a billionaire so he and putin must be stopped or our great democracy will fail..the only thing america need not fear is an invasion of zombies..they eat brains…we’re safe.

Robert Golden

September 3, 2017 at 12:10 am

Any proof Trump is a billionaire? He needed to borrow from everyone to continue his candidacy, and sold 40 M in stock, in an up market. A billionaire has a minimum of 1000 million. In other words, they can write a check without compromising a nation or themselves. Hawking steaks, wine, and R.E. courses raises my doubts. I think he is the most financially compromised President we have ever had. However, he may make a billion, selling his office.

Trump is America’s Achilles heal. Since he had the trappings of success largely due to inheritance, inflation, reality TV, and his branding, many people though he was capable and knowledgeable. Neither assumption can be verified to date., and we are faced with a crime, and/or a train wreck. His learning curve is so great, he is setting the whole country and himself up for failure. For most Americans nothing good will come from Trump.

DannyWeil

September 3, 2017 at 9:34 am

Trump owes Deutche Bank 600 million

Anon

September 3, 2017 at 12:44 pm

And as a zionist you want Pence, of course.

Larry Gates

September 2, 2017 at 6:52 pm

I was kicked out of a local Indivisible group for stating and posting the same evidence by Robert Parry and other investigative journalists that there is no evidence for Russia-Gate. The facts be damned, I learned. This was intolerable heresy. I have lost friends. I have gotten nasty emails and accused of being a troll.

Indivisible is nothing but a Clinton operation to sheep dog Bernie supporters into giving their undying allegiance to the corporatists who hate them.

I’m sorry you are being mistreated. It doesn’t surprise me, though.

Deborah Andrew

September 2, 2017 at 6:59 pm

I am grateful for your integrity, courage and writing. Even Amy Goodman, much touted journaiist and host of DemocracyNow! continues this pattern of creating the assumption that it has been proven that the Russian government hacked the recent Presidential election in order to favor Donald Trump. I would be grateful if you would even add quotes from AG in your next article. I am unable to get any response.

Robert Golden

September 3, 2017 at 12:18 am

Yeah, there are a lot of people operating on this assumption. The people at the highest levels of our government, and the ones we put all of our faith in are investigating this as best they can. Many, including our POTUS has tried to stop them, but apparently there is a lot of institutional character still left in our government to get at the truth, no matter where it leads. I have to give the R’s credit for this, even though it is apparent the truth seeping out. When it is all revealed, I have confidence Trump will be removed from office, and hopefully Pence too. Then the D’s can take over Congress and start working on repairing our democracy.

Gregory Herr

September 3, 2017 at 9:32 am

You are confusing wrecking crews with construction crews. But you understand that Russia-did-it is an “assumption” right? Kind of like misplaced faith.

Anon

September 3, 2017 at 12:46 pm

Your zionist D’s have done everything in their power to defeat democracy, which is your agenda.

Larry Gates’ post shows how ugly things have turned in this country, and irrationality is on the ascendant. The latest report that the Russian consulate in San Francisco being given 48 hours for the Russians to vacate and then sending in US security officials to go into the premises, which actually legally are their sovereign residence, shows just how disgusting and totalitarian this thing has become. And this from the government that holds the record for overthrows, assassinations, covert and overt ops. Oh my, how exceptional! Yes, the ghost of Allen Dulles hovers over the land. This will eventually boomerang on the US, but it surely is dragging on.

Realist

September 3, 2017 at 3:42 am

Everybody else has been rehashing garbage arguments here that have been refuted for many months. There is not a shred of evidence that Russia, in any way, purloined and exposed any emails about Hillary during the campaign. If there were, you would have seen it in all its gory details. You, dear Jessica, zeroed in on the most important bit of U.S. government chicanery now ongoing.

The latest caper by the state department to kick out more Russian diplomats, seize more diplomatic properties and violate international law by searching the compounds, including private apartments, which are sovereign territory on two-day notice smells suspiciously like an operation to plant the infamous missing evidence. Will you be surprised when the FBI “discovers” a cache of flash drives or a stray laptop storing all of Hillary’s emails that someone from the Russian San Francisco consulate or the Russian New York Trade Mission forgot to destroy or secrete out of the premises?

Long ago Karl Rove told us all that reality would be whatever the American government made it to be. Get ready for some new realities. BTW, analysts think that this operation is also meant to become the pretext for new laws being drawn up in the Senate to strip more diplomatic protections and excuse the raid that will ultimately nab Julian Assange from the Ecuadorian embassy in London. After all, the purpose will be to “defend” the United States and see justice done, dontcha know? No, no, we’re not being hegemonic, we’re warm, cuddly and benign. We’re the exceptional country that defines what is right and wrong. Overthrowing regimes and laying waste entire countries is for everybody’s good if “we” deem it necessary. As Richard Nixon said, “if the president does it, it is not illegal.” That’s been refined now, since the ultimate power seems no longer to reside within the presidency. Exactly where its lair is, short of Mordor, is classified and none of your business. But, you’ll be happy to know that, whoever they are and wherever they reside, they act in your name… and on your dime. Like it or lump it. I figure the entire presstitute corp, including the New York Times, and the entirety of both political parties are either evil enough or scared enough to embrace these concepts. Surely, they are not ALL so stupid as to a take the government’s absurd narratives, sans all fact, as reality. They are each either a devil, a coward or a fool. Together they will destroy the earth. It’s a collaborative effort. Jesus promised it to the meek, said we’d inherit it, presumably from the rich and powerful, but I don’t think there will be anything left for anyone.

Joe Tedesky

September 4, 2017 at 9:59 am

You got the neo-mindset down pretty darn good, Realist.

What drives me crazy, is that beyond this comment board most Americans I encounter, are afraid to speak ill about the Israeli interference into American politics. I mean, it’s crazy. Like it isn’t as though we Americans don’t get to see AIPAC conventions broadcasted into our living rooms, where our American presidential candidates make fools out of themselves tripping, and falling all over each other, while trying to out do one another attempting ever so hard to impress this Zionist mass of campaign donation instigators. No, I think a lot of Americans can see it, but out of fear of being branded a anti-Semite they keep their opinionated mouths shut.

This brings me to say, that I feel the Jewish people are for the most part being misrepresented by their Zionist leaders, as we average Americans are being misled by our Neocon leaders. In short, if there is to be another Nuremberg trail, may we expect to see Israeli’s and Americans standing in the dock of the accused, or instead could these same war criminals end up being the judges?

Realist

September 3, 2017 at 3:48 am

This “moderation” treatment is becoming tedious. You have no way to instantaneously assess the content of my posts, none of which fall outside the bounds of typical discourse on this site. Yet most everything I put up lately is held back for the better part of a day before it is allowed to be read by the public.

I had a very timely and entirely appropriate response to Jessica, who had focussed in on a critical ongoing event.

jimbo

September 2, 2017 at 8:33 pm

I read that article and right away I came to CN for a rebuttal and a day later here it is! Right on Mr. Parry!

Along with a dearth of “supposedlys” and “purportedlys” I did not see – but had expected to see – any statement or even a hint that there are some other news outlets which dispute Russia’s interference in the election.

Naturally I hadn’t seen in the New York Times piece (replace the N for a J), but surprisingly not in Mr. Parry’s rebuttal either, any blame placed on Israel, Zionists, Globalists, Zio-Globalists, the Zionist Power Configuration (a new one to me), George Soros, the panoply of Jews and Jew lovers whom a vociferous number of regular CN commenters – and alt-righters – love to hate . C’mon, Mr award winning investigative journalist, get with the consensus.

mike k

September 2, 2017 at 9:01 pm

Your remark about “Jew lovers” tells us who you are jimbo.

Larry

September 3, 2017 at 1:29 am

Parry’s threads are full of bigots who lose sight of the actual big picture by superimposing their irrational hatreds and biases over it. I don’t know how he tolerates them, especially without any rebuttals whatsoever to their hatemongering.

Sam F

September 3, 2017 at 12:57 pm

This is one of the few comments I have seen here that uses a phrase that suggests prejudice against Jewish people. You must learn to distinguish criticism of specific Jewish persons from “hatemongering.” That is the conflation of lesser intellects than you find yourself among here.
If you are less defensive, you will be able to open your mind to the sad truth of zionist wrongdoing.

DannyWeil

September 3, 2017 at 9:36 am

Yes,Israel has created the perfect climate for anti-Jewish sentiments. Not all Jews are Zionists and many Christians are.

Sad that the distinction cannot be made by some

Cratylus

September 2, 2017 at 8:52 pm

This is a superb column.
But the writers on the subject are fighting with one hand tied behind their back.
What is the source of this desire to get Trump? Is it simply that he is “vulgar” as the NYT loves to call him – or narcissistic? Is it because he wants to build a Wall? If so, I do not hear the Israelis being excoriated for what is fairly called their Apartheid Wall.
The main thing is that Trump wants to “get along with Russia.” If you wish to know how our Ruling Elite feel about that one, look at the most recent Congressional vote on compulsory sanctions for Russia, Iran and the DPRK. Only five dissenters in both Houses – four libertarian Republicans and Bernie who said he was fine withe Russia sanctions but he did not want to vote for the Iranian ones. Yes, Bernie too is a Russia hawk, for those who have not noticed. And I doubt that is because he had a bad honeymoon experience.

So what is the hand that is withheld from the fight? It is praise and support for Trump’s embattled attempt to build what Stephen F. Cohen calls Detente 2.0 – and an acknowledgement of the hurdles faced and the consequences of failure. Cohen writes in favor of it as do I when and where I can. It is considered very bad form in the crowd that the late, great Alex Cockburn called the “pwogwessives.” It is time for more people to follow Cohen’s example on this score. The narrative on Russiagate is only a small part of a bigger story. But it takes a lot of guts. One can be criticized and ostracized for a single positive word about Trump in “polite” circles .

mike k

September 2, 2017 at 9:05 pm

Cratylus, I am sure you know that anyone who states the simple bald truth will upset most people, because they are accustomed to lies and can’t handle the truth.

Robert Golden

September 3, 2017 at 12:32 am

Forget about Trump. Think of the fossil fuel interest that lead the reactionary wing of the R party, i.e. Kochs and Mercers. Who do you think is running this government now?

Income and wealth disparity has never been greater, and democracy (w/ CU and Speech Now) has never been more compromised. The there is the environment, and the global environment, which effects everyone. Think about all of the false premises that operate in our politics: “free-markets”, deregulation, privatization, “small government”, global warming denial, and show me where any of this makes sense. Houston is a product of global warming and deregulation, and so was the “Great Recession”. Show me how these catch words actually work?

DannyWeil

September 3, 2017 at 9:37 am

Right, Trump is the reality TV; the real issue is the 1.7 trillion in cuts the reactionary republicans have for us

Gregory Herr

September 3, 2017 at 10:10 am

And the Democrats will let them do it. If they spent more time actually crafting policy with integrity, and standing up and fighting for that policy, rather than bullshitting about Russia, handwringing over Trump’s election, and generally shilling for more war, then maybe the focus could be about some domestic priorities.

Gregory Herr

September 3, 2017 at 10:02 am

Who was running the government when Clinton repealed Glass-Steagall? What investments were made in energy diversification while his VP profiled global warming?
The trends of privatization, deregulation, and budgetary constraints on anything non-military have been a bipartisan handiwork. An effective response to ecological issues has been bipartisanly neglected.

Hey Robert Golden, you’re a new voice to the message threads here a CN. I’ve been reading your posts and wondering if you could give me some tips on getting a gig at the Hasbara branch of the IDF. Gotta make sure I can make the rent since my job got outsourced.
Thanks in advance!

Larry

September 3, 2017 at 1:32 am

Trump is someone who would import Russia’s overt totalitarian practices if he could. To me, that is the problem with his efforts to become BFF’s with Putin’s Russia. It’s odd no one at this site ever seems to mention that, which could be very telling.

You mean, the over-powerful Russain Federation has been screwing the innocent powerless US? It seems that you have never heard about the concept of “deep state” and that you have no idea about the power of the Lobby (see the Middle Eastern wars) and the power of money (see the major donors). By the way, the US is oligarchy and your quetching about the imagined importation of totalitarian practices from Russia is laughable: http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746
How many standing ovations the US Senate (the Israel-occupied territory) gave to criminal Bibi? – 29 (twenty-nine)? And you are bringing your petty hypothesis that Russians are everywhere? – To restore its democratic institutions, the US needs, first of all, to implement FARA towards the Lobby.

It’s the ongoing battle of the Democratic establishment to hang onto the hearts and minds of the 2016 voting blocks that once included 400 Democratic delegates and a huge swath of the electorate all giving lip service to failed policy positions.
If the narrative of a “stolen election” were to fail, the image of the “most qualified candidate” comes under scrutiny. “Perfect candidate” morphs into “flawed candidate”. The content of the leaked emails becomes more critical than who did the leaking.
This would be a threat to the credibility of the whole neoliberal Democratic machine that has been a party to the huuuuge shift away from the New Deal and to the endless, devastating regime change wars.
Voters stop clinging to the “lesser of two evils” paradigm and hopefully take a more active role in scrutinizing policy choices and candidates who support those better policy choices.

mike k

September 2, 2017 at 9:11 pm

The MSM are simply propaganda organs of the rich and powerful. Once you see that, then you can properly evaluate the garbage they put out, if you bother to read it or watch it. Their pretense of telling the truth is a disgusting lie. Their spokespersons are traitors to humanity.

Randal Marlin

September 2, 2017 at 10:12 pm

I would like to reinforce your view about media group-think and add to it evidence that people with scholarly credentials sometimes treat the mainstream narrative as if it were proven fact. In today’s Ottawa Citizen a column on the editorial page begins: “After Bashar Assad suffocated children with poison gas in April, Donald Trump retaliated with Tomahawk missiles.” (“Here’s how the world can hold Syria responsible for its crimes,” A14).

The article’s authors were identified as follows: “Payam Akhavan is a professor of international law at McGill University and a former UN prosecutor at The Hague. Andrew Stobo Sniderman was the human rights advisor to former minister of foreign affairs Stéphane Dion.”

The article promotes the idea of holding Syria to account for torturing people, but makes no mention of U.S. torture, or its illegal wars, or its rendering of suspects to Syria to be tortured. We in Canada know all about the last-mentioned because of the widely-publicized case of Maher Arar, who was awarded $10 million by the Canadian government for its unjust treatment of him shortly after 9/11 in advising U.S. counterparts that he might be a terrorist suspect.

occupy on

September 2, 2017 at 10:28 pm

Thank you, Robert Parry! You keep spelling out these important truths to us, and we’ll keep getting that word out everywhere and every way we can! The deep state wants to ‘perdure’ with its ‘truth’ until it’s the last word standing…. they’ve done it before over and over. They won’t get away with it this time, thanks to you, dear man!

alley cat

September 2, 2017 at 10:39 pm

The only thing more dangerous to democracy than a plutocrat-owned newspaper is a Zionist plutocrat-owned newspaper. Non-Zionist plutocrats are always pushing for war to bolster profits from their MIC-heavy stock portfolios. How far would they go in undermining democracy and their own government for the sake of their portfolio’s bottom line? Surely these parasites would stop before destroying the host they gorge on?

But Zionist plutocrats are a different species of ver*** entirely. Israel’s security is even more important to them than fleecing goys. At what point will they cease their efforts to oust Trump? To answer that question, read/watch some interviews with Assad to see how fiercely he opposes Zionist ethnic-cleansing of Arabs. Assad’s vehement anti-racism (not anti-Semitism) makes him someone the Zionists cannot trust. Assad must go. By extension, any friend of Assad’s (Putin) also cannot be trusted. So Putin as well must go. Last but not least, any friend of Putin’s (Trump), even if he postures as a fanatical Zionist, cannot be trusted to always put Israel first.

Trump must go.

When will the Zionists stop? Only when Israeli apartheid is absolutely secure, because Zionists equate apartheid with the survival of a Jewish state. And they’re absolutely right. End Israeli apartheid, and Zionism ends along with it. (We can dream, right?)

DannyWeil

September 3, 2017 at 9:39 am

Trump will never ‘go’. He is doing what the ruling elite want: handling the deflection while Bannon and the reactionary republicans handle the econony

alley cat

September 3, 2017 at 11:33 am

Danny, Trump will never go voluntarily but he will go just the same if the ruling elite has their druthers (and they usually do). Deflection? You think the Zionist neocons at the NYT are orchestrating these anti-Trump smears to deflect attention from the economy? They have identity politics for that. They want Trump’s scalp for letting Assad slip out of the neocon noose. Also, Trump fired Bannon, in case you hadn’t heard. And both corporatist political parties are responsible for the growing economic inequality in this country, not just reactionary Republicans.

Joe Tedesky

September 4, 2017 at 10:17 am

I wonder if Trump were to be impeached, would another person as president, in this case Mike Pence be allowed to form a relationship of detente with Russia then?

alley cat

September 4, 2017 at 3:31 pm

Ted, as far as I know, Pence is a hard-core Russophobe so there’s no danger of him reaching a détente with Russia. But impeaching Trump on the basis of fabricated charges and smears (Russiagate) might tear this country apart at the seams (assuming Trump fights back, being innocent and all).

Joe Tedesky

September 4, 2017 at 7:19 pm

You are right. Trump is nothing more than a vehicle in which to attack Putin with.

Robert Golden: “And thank god that most of the time the NY Times gets things right, and fulfills it’s obligations under the 1st amendment, while government does its work. Where would be be without any transparency?”

“When it is all revealed, I have confidence Trump will be removed from office, and hopefully Pence too. Then the D’s can take over Congress and start working on repairing our democracy.”

I couldn’t help myself. I just started laughing at these two most ridiculous statements I’ve read in days.
Do you actually believe this crap or are you trolling for dollars by getting hits to the enormous amount of posts you have put up?

And which god are you referring to? Zeus, Athena, Ra, Odin, Buddha, Neptune, the ooga booga of the darkest jungles of South America? You need to be far more specific because it leaves your millions of desperate followers in confusion due to the 1.5 million invented gods that have been identified and cataloged by anthropologists. Can you describe what your god looks like, voice, eye color, height, weight, shoe size? Please, inform us ignorant peasants with your brilliance.

And as for repairing our democracy…Robert, you obviously have been reading too much of Tom Tomorrow’s alternate universe comic strip. Every post is right out of Perkin’s fertile imagination of buffoonery in action. I’ve got maybe seven of them on the shelf and I can confidently tell you that you have become a cartoon human.

Why is anybody even replying to this cartoon guy? You can’t teach stupid.

John Podesta could avoid falling victim to a “spear-phishing” scam that allowed his emails to be hacked by installing a Chrome extension named Scam Block Plus. (Free for private users)

Tom Welsh

September 3, 2017 at 4:49 am

Why would anyone go to the trouble of spreading “false and damaging information about Mrs Clinton” when there is so much true and damaging information about Mrs Clinton?

Perry Logan

September 3, 2017 at 8:09 am

There is no such information. Hillary Clinton has yet to receive so much as a parking ticket.

F. G. Sanford

September 3, 2017 at 9:37 am

And…you’re impressed, just because she gets away with murder? This article has brought out the trolls in full force. The “deep state” must be really nervous. As a de facto arm of the CIA, the NYT exposes the reality that President Trump’s own nominees are working against him. Pompeo has obviously done nothing to reel in the sharks. Of course, it should be obvious to anyone that these are rogue institutions regardless of who is nominally in charge. It’s time for me to put in another plug for Kevin Shipp and that video, CIA Agent Risks All To Expose The Shadow Government. This comment will be moderated as usual, so it won’t be timely. Sorry, but under the circumstances, it’s the best I can do.

Realist

September 3, 2017 at 6:23 pm

Once trolls (possibly government-sponsored) overwhelm a site, meaningful discussion becomes impossible. I’m trying to rationalize why I am moderated so often. Perhaps a flood of troll posts would otherwise monopolize this forum? Maybe we only see the tip of the iceberg. Next the trolls will be crying suppression of free speech after reading that remark.

If there ever was a “Trump” government, it was seeded from the get-go with Deep-staters in service to the neocon agenda of world domination. Analysts have ascribed this result to Romney operatives being given undue influence in choosing up the original cabinet. There were also far too many Obomber holdovers, many still entrenched and poisoning the waters. Most of the genuine loyal Trumpists have since been purged from the White House. This government is more like a military junta with all the bellicose generals in charge.

Does anyone really think it was Trump himself who decided to expel more Russian diplomats, seize more Russian property and subject it to illegal searches by the FBI? America not only pisses on the U.S. constitution, the Geneva conventions, the legal precedents of Nuremberg, and nuclear non-proliferation treaties but now also the Vienna conventions regarding diplomatic protocol. Washington has become a rogue state in every sense of the word, though the New York Times would have you believe that “War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, and Ignorance is Strength.” My utmost respect to Robert Parry and Stephen F. Cohen for rejecting those absurdities to the very end.

Skip Scott

September 4, 2017 at 1:41 pm

It is a shame that you are being plagued with moderation. I don’t know why since you’re one of the best commenters on this site. What could their beef possibly be? Or is it somehow random? I’ve been moderated a couple times, but not often, and the post usually contained links they may have wanted to review. Speaking of quality commenters, has anybody heard from Abe lately? Hope he hasn’t been run off.

Abe

September 4, 2017 at 2:01 pm

Still around, dear comrades.

Let’s just say, there ain’t no surprises in the news these days.

Sing out Hare Hare
Dance the Hoochie Koo
City lights are oh so bright
As we go sliding, sliding
Sliding, sliding, sliding, sliding through

It’s not just me being affected, Skip. I’ve yet to see the common element behind the delays, as most of these posts get through since there is nothing insolent or incendiary about them. I’m guessing the robot censor keys in on specific words, but I haven’t identified them. It was always hilarious when certain comic strip forums would always block any reference to a particular strip unless you referred to it as “Richard Tracy,” rather than its actual name. But my posting exploits have shrunk to a precious few as it is now required by most sites to register with one of the “social media,” mostly Facedbook or Disgust. Mark Suckerberg may end up the next president, but he’s not entitled to every jot and tittle of my personal existence.

Joe Tedesky

September 3, 2017 at 8:06 pm

Funny you mention Kevin Shipp. The other night I watched a YouTube video where Mr Shipp described in detail the ‘Shadow Government’ and the ‘Deep State’, and what makes each different from each other. I can only encourage others to google Kevin Shipp, and listen to what he has to say.

The U.S.government has been intimately associated with several mobs, U.S., Russian, Israeli, etc. ever since their CIA Bay of Pigs failure, the CIA drug racket in Central America and the assassination of Kennedy that is increasingly considering the CIA and the mob and part of our government as the organizers. That’s half a century. The government now seems to have come under complete control of those various mafias.

For example, I keep writing about why we went into Afghanistan. Now matter how fascistic the Bush Cheney mob might be there is absolutely no intelligent answer than to control the supply of heroin. That’s also the only explanation of why we’re still there and will continue to be with a few of our troops and a mass of Erik Prince’s mercenaries.

And then there’s the 2nd volume of the same question: Afghanistan produces 80% of the world’s heroin; who produces the rest? Burma now Myanmar except for a small production from South & Central America. So under the cover of interest in the feminist approach to Suu Kyi – whose family ran Myanmar until the Generals threw them out – which of our Secretarys of State went to meet with Suu and the Generals? After the first trip, who immediately returned with Obama for more intense discussions with Suu and the Generals? Traditionally, most of the Burmese production of opium and heroin went to China. It’s interesting to note, however, that our sudden interest in this little country was soon followed by what the mass media referred to as an American heroin epidemic that led to an even cheaper opoid epidemic, then an fenatyl epidemic. So is our government involved in drugging its citizen?

I wish that Parry or someone approaching his quality would take on this subject.

Bob Van Noy

September 3, 2017 at 9:11 am

Thank you Pierre Anonymot. Actually Robert Parry never leaves this topic in his battle for the truth. You have given me the opportunity to point to an important new book by a long time authority on the topic of Heroin that I’m sure you know of but many reading this will not be aware of, and that is Alfred W. McCoy and his new book is, “In The Shadows Of The American Century”. I’ll provide a link so that interested readers can read more about it. In the book Mr. McCoy explains the concept of Empire as simply and clearly as I’ve ever seen and, of course, he Is the authority on America’s long, tangled involvement with international drug trading. Thanks for the opening…

I’ve often thought that JFK’s assassination wasn’t an Israeli operation, or that Israel had anything to do with it at all, but I also think that through Meyer Lansky having full knowledge of the American mobs involvement in conjunction with the then sitting U.S. Government officials who were involved in that terrible assassination, that blackmail was used to the fullest for the Israeli’s to win over certain powerful American assets. This could also explain the LBJ McNamara cover up of the attack on the USS Liberty. Oh, and don’t forget Admiral John McCain’s involvement in that sorry episode of American history, either.

I also think that our CIA has a monopoly on the heroin trade, big time. Yet, hardly anyone knows of Gary Webb. This lack of public knowledge is attributable to a corporate owned press, who is paid to ignore such events of reporting truthfully the goings on of truth tellers.

DannyWeil

September 3, 2017 at 9:30 am

The US is busy pushing countries into the Russian and Chinese camp. Example given: Venezuela.

Once all the countries that are being bombed or threatened by the US move towards Russia then the war will begin.

Michael Kenny

September 3, 2017 at 10:49 am

If Russiagate really was as toothless as Mr Parry keeps claiming, why does he keep coming back to it? If its toothlessness is so obvious to him, why does he think the rest of mankind is incapable of seeing that? The very fact that he keeps coming back to this (and Ukraine), repeating the same arguments over and over again, suggests that he is more scared of Russiagate than he wants us to realise. The very fact that he splits hairs (Russian “government”, “hacked”) conveys the same message. And, of course, he reminds us that, at the end of the day, Russiagate is all about Ukraine, not mere Russian interference in the election. Russiagate exists because Putin’s American supporters portrayed Trump as Putin’s stooge who would capitulate to him in Ukraine and Trump didn’t choose to refute that claim. Putin’s supporters have made matters worse since the election by wailing about Trump not keeping his promise. Trump himself hasn’t helped. He is too fond of trying to use empty symbols as an excuse for doing nothing. He isn’t building the wall but he pardons Joe Arpaio. He doesn’t stand up to Putin but he closes a few diplomatic missions. Until Trump gets Putin out of Ukraine, one way or the other, Russiagate will be on his back.

Zachary Smith

September 3, 2017 at 11:06 am

Until Trump gets Putin out of Ukraine, one way or the other, Russiagate will be on his back.

No mention of ever-victorious Israel, but otherwise mostly the standard Putin/Ukraine stuff. The only novel thing I see is the revelation that Mr. Robert Parry must be wetting his pants (or worse) on account of his terror of Russiagate.

Anon

September 3, 2017 at 1:38 pm

You know as well as we that Mr. Parry continues denouncing your mass media propaganda while it continues.
You have offered no evidence or valid argument here: a truth-free, morality-free, paid propagandist.

“The very fact that he splits hairs (Russian “government”, “hacked”) conveys the same message” …”splitting hairs” implies an inconsequential difference in terms being used. Parry is talking about an alleged “hack” actually being a leak. This is not splitting hairs; this is making a very important distinction, especially as someone was likely to have been murdered for the leak.

CitizenOne

September 4, 2017 at 12:58 am

Michael Kenny said:

If Russiagate really was as toothless as Mr Parry keeps claiming, why does he keep coming back to it? If its toothlessness is so obvious to him, why does he think the rest of mankind is incapable of seeing that? The very fact that he keeps coming back to this (and Ukraine), repeating the same arguments over and over again, suggests that he is more scared of Russiagate than he wants us to realise.

Mr. Kenny:
Consider the fact that the US government and their handmaidens the media have concocted the Russia-gate story and have decided that wall to wall propaganda and the media’s endlessly coming back to the Russia-gate B.S. is the reason Mr. Parry has to keep coming back to it. As long as we are being bombarded with propaganda Mr. Parry needs to continuously refute the claims based on no evidence.

Michael Kenny said:

The very fact that he splits hairs (Russian “government”, “hacked”) conveys the same message. And, of course, he reminds us that, at the end of the day, Russiagate is all about Ukraine,

(Russian “government”, “Hacked”) and reminding us it is all about Ukraine? This incoherent babble translates to “prunes vs. potatoes” No information there.

Michael Kelly stated:

Russiagate exists because Putin’s American supporters portrayed Trump as Putin’s stooge who would capitulate to him in Ukraine and Trump didn’t choose to refute that claim.

Translation: “Banana Banana who turned the apple into a sponge.” No information there.

Michael Kenny says:
Putin’s supporters have made matters worse since the election by wailing about Trump not keeping his promise.

Translation: democrats are communists.

Michael Kinney says:
Trump himself hasn’t helped. He is too fond of trying to use empty symbols as an excuse for doing nothing. He isn’t building the wall but he pardons Joe Arpaio. He doesn’t stand up to Putin but he closes a few diplomatic missions. Until Trump gets Putin out of Ukraine, one way or the other, Russiagate will be on his back

Translation:

“I support war with Russia based on no information and do this because Trump needs to get Putin out of Russia or else.”

Mr Kinney’s comments are thinly disguised war mongering against a new enemy based on no facts. If we set the bar so low that Russia can only be redeemed by ousting Putin and turning Ukraine towards the West, we are effectively at war with Russia.

If we demonize all of the people who are against this crazy plan by calling them “Putin Supporters” then we have entered into a Joseph McCarthy red scare world where anyone who disputes the jaundiced claims by the yellow journalism outlets is a communist sympathizer.

Great job on obfuscation and disinformation Mr. Kinney. I am sure Obama would be proud of you.

Michael Morrissey

September 3, 2017 at 11:38 am

The NYT has no integrity and no shame. I have read the “dissenting” report and Ray et al.’s reply, as well as the “independent” Freitas report, and agree completely with Ray et al. See also here.

What ever happened to the principle of innocent until proven guilty? Everyone knows it is much harder, often impossible, to prove one’s innocence. Here we are talking about the Russian govt. All of the participants (the VIPS, including dissenters, and Freitas, by implication) agree 100% that there is no convincing evidence that the Russians, whether by hack, leak, or ESP, gave the emails to Wikileaks. There is only the “assessment” of proven liars and their handpicked associates to the contrary. Julian Assange and Craig Murray, by contrast, have never lied, to our knowledge, and Assange has never said anything he couldn’t back up with documents. So why is this a contest?

And shame on Thomas Drake, Scott Ritter and the other VIPS “dissenters.” As Ray says, they were given ample opportunity to dissent and make their case before the VIPS published their memo. To try to stab them in the back (and failing) afterwards is very, very bad form, to say the least, and I suspect even worse.

Furthermore, Michael Kenny, why do you impute motive to Robert Parry’s reasons to return to the “Russiagate” issue? In whose head do you reside but yours alone? As for your motive to return to dissing of CN, Robert Parry, Putin and Russia, that’s solely yours and let’s leave it so.

The fact that this issue continues to be stirred up by such elements of MSM as the old “Grey Lady” shows just how much control the MIC has of journalists, a very long distance from the days of yore. And this is a dangerous age to stir this pot, with our Planet Earth endangered by the ignorance, stupidity, and veniality of humanity’s current behavior. I’m not just talking about climate change. It’s the whole fragile picture of overpopulation, overconsumption, and inability to see necessity for humans cooperating together as members of one humanity.

CitizenOne

September 4, 2017 at 10:35 am

Precisely! This is playing out like a Shakespearean tragedy. Just when it is most important we act on the right information and make informed choices we see the failure of journalism chiefly manifested as the replacement of investigative journalism with government/corporate propaganda. Many unintended consequences have combined into a “they never saw it coming” moment spanning across political platforms, nations, global institutions and a global media system which now seeks to deceive everyone to preserve the profits of the business models that are going to create a global extinction event (it has begun) where humans will not be spared the harsh realities due to our inaction.

It is ridiculous that every candidate routinely prostitutes themselves to the gods of corporate money providing aid and support for what is surely the wrong thing to do. But they have to. The Citizens United and McCutcheon SCOTUS rulings have significantly raised the amount of money in political elections. Without any limits, the sky is literally attainable by the most politically motivated wealthy fanatics no matter what their motivation. One group wants a pipeline and more drilling rights and another wants pollution regulations eliminated. In every corner of government and the corporate controlled press, special interests dominate every discussion and the interests of all of the rest of us are ignored completely if not outright attacked.

Rest assured that the recent battles over SCOTUS Justices were all about those rulings. Corporations have now really been enthroned and their lackeys in government really are playing upon peoples prejudices to aggregate all wealth and power in the hands of a few. Lincoln’s nightmare has become a stark reality and his end vision a startling likelihood.

This can change. The answer is not likely to happen. That answer is to put the genie back in the bottle and remove special interest cash from politics. Make it illegal once again. Reverse all of the media deregulation laws and all of the financial deregulation laws and all of the environmental protection deregulation laws etc. Bring back the Fairness Doctrine. Put back the education of our children about the horrible danger they are in from threats we can control but only if we care.

If we are not informed or are misinformed we are not likely to care. Such is the case. People are led. They can be led to war or peace. They can be educated to act or kept ignorant and led to their doom.

Climate change denial should be viewed like holocaust denial but based on a genocide which has not yet happened. Our media’s ability to make a mockery and a joke out of Al Gore while hauling water for conservatives by stifling coverage of the impending disaster should be viewed as crimes against humanity.

The truth is that America and every other country is a tinderbox waiting for somebody to ignite it. We have been spared the fate of other nations solely based upon our leaders past efforts to refrain from extremism. In the end, extremism, if it is allowed to go unchecked, will envelop our nation in turmoil and violence as it has each and every time it has been called on by the leaders of nations. The fact that our President loses his cool and blows a gasket upon being denied his daily dose of extreme right wing propaganda doesn’t help and the people who put him there don’t seem to give a damn. Les Moonvies, CEO of CBS said this about Trump’s campaign to his shareholders during the primaries: “it may be bad for America but it is damn good for CBS”.

I would agree. It is bad.

Delia Ruhe

September 3, 2017 at 12:34 pm

‘The Times asserts that “Russian efforts to compromise American election systems … include combing through voter databases, scanning for vulnerabilities or seeking to alter data, which have been identified in multiple states.” ‘

As I understand it, “seeking to alter data” was a highly successful project of disenfranchisement performed by Republican governments. If any event has been underreported thanks to overreporting of MSM fantasies of Russian attacks on American democracy, it’s that Republican assaults on the voter rolls for the purpose of removing Democrat voters from them.

Hey ScottB.
Robert Parry is an heroic guardian of the truth and treasured national asset. However, for today, you are Interweb Demigod for overcoming your reticence/decorum and gifting us with The Clapper.
Thanks.

Tom

September 3, 2017 at 4:17 pm

All throughout corporate media, all that matters is right wing content. Right wing content makes tons of money. Totally destroy anything “liberal”. Why? Because it’s literally a war. It’s hand-to-hand combat for viewers (an actual Phil Griffin quote). Which means that actual facts double sourced are boring and passe. Nobody cares about that.

Has the US tit-for-tat sanctions w/Russia accomplished anything? No. Russian “expert” Stephen Cohen says that Trump being President is a great thing because he wants “better relations”. No problems with a mentally ill racist? Cohen is an idiot.

I seriously doubt that you ever listened to Stephen Cohen reporting on Russian topics. He was once a regular analyst on PBS but had since been blacklisted for taking a contrarian view to the msm during Russia Gate. Since then, PBS has been sponsored by special interests that tow the official State Dept. line on most foreign policy issues and especially, Russia. Your remark(taken out of context) only shows that he supports Trump’s desire to improve relations with Russia(not his entire agenda). What’s wrong with that?

Hank

September 4, 2017 at 11:42 am

I have seen him many times on RT and other youtube venues.

roza shanina

September 3, 2017 at 9:01 pm

Wow, I think CN has found some fame. I have never seen the amount of people posting on CN who are just absolute trolls unwilling to take part in debate. Russia this, Russia that.
How much does the Hasbara factory pay. I’ve read enough of their filth to be able to spread a lie for the right price.

Bob Ford

September 3, 2017 at 10:34 pm

Very good analysis, thoroughly delineating how journalism has become propaganda, although sometimes you are too lenient on those who have perverted journalism to further a political agenda.

roza shanina

September 3, 2017 at 11:20 pm

hi michael kenny and robert golden. i guess our little community of people who discuss world affairs with any level of seriousness must have landed on the radar and must be maligned. oops, oh well. can you get me a gig at the hasbara center for disinformation? gotta make the rent. my job was outsourced under NAFTA! thanks in advance!

Roy G Biv

September 11, 2017 at 9:01 pm

Wrong . Good thinkers like Kenny and Golden were her first, back when Parry was a hero. Now he is hosting an infected nest of haters. Ever since he got scared by the Truth movement, his journalism has become rigid and yet weak. Being a Putin apologist is the deepest disappointment. Russian crony capitalism is American crony capitalism unrestrained and on steroids. He’s stuck on the Cold War model which is way out of date

Goebels quote. Tell a big lie repeat it enough it will then become fact. Something like that . This is what we have become in USA and western civilisation. The Emperor has no clothes. Our Main Antionette moment. cynicism has gone beyond the 16percent threshold hence we are at a tipping point where anything out journo’s politicians or learned professional speak or say will be totally ignored. Hoping we get there sooner rather than later for we are in great need of a paradigm shift. Tempest Fugit.

JanKees

September 4, 2017 at 9:16 am

I have a sneaking suspicion that we’ll eventually learn that the anonymous “hand-picked analysts” from the Directorate of National Intelligence, NSA, CIA, and FBI were actually James Clapper, Mike Rogers, John Brennan and James Comey. We’ll also find out these are the same “officials at the highest levels of the intelligence community” identified by the NYT, WPost, NBC et al. as their allegedly credible sources of leaks about Russian interference right after the election, when these guys were just getting the ball rolling by inuendo, National-Enquirer-style, long before their official “assessment” Jan. 9 proved it all through RT’s covering the Jill Stein-Mark Johnson presidential debate, which, as we all know now, determined the outcome of the election. The official anti-Russia selling points have borne the marks of an elite, top-level operation since the beginning. It’s no mere Ollie North making things happen this time.

j. D. D.

September 4, 2017 at 9:17 am

Brilliant report.

Gosnold Knobgoblin

September 4, 2017 at 9:27 am

Mr Parry notes: “The reality is that the Times has engaged in a long pattern of anti-Russia prejudice going back a number of years but escalating dramatically since 2013 when prominent neoconservatives began to target Russia as an obstacle to their agendas of “regime change” in Syria and “bomb-bomb-bombing” Iran.”

In fact, the demonization of Russia under Putin is traceable to a specific event ten years earlier: Putin’s decision to arrest Khordokovsky and Lebedev for their theft of Yukos. This was Putin’s first strong signal that he was going to put a stop to Zionist expropriation of Russian wealth. And it was from this event that US media coverage of Putin, generally favorable in line with the official Washington position as it was, immediately turned to vituperation.

In fact, it can be traced to the Post’s provision of a little editorial space to the maggot Richard Perle in a story days after the arrest of the Zionist thieves:

“Richard Perle, a prominent adviser to the Bush administration, told the Russian newspaper Kommersant that Russia should be expelled from the Group of Eight club of industrialized nations. “They certainly don’t meet the standards of the others in the G-8 when they make a move like this,” Perle said in a telephone interview from Washington on Thursday.

“Perle sharply disagreed with President Bush’s comments during a Camp David summit last month praising Putin’s vision of building democracy and rule of law. “There’s no evidence he has such a vision. In fact, the evidence to the contrary is mounting. The significant number of foreign intelligence officers in the high reaches of government and actions like this — it’s clearly a case of expropriation and political persecution.””

Thanks for that bit of insight. I was wondering what the exact moment was that triggered the deep state’s hatred of Putin. Makes a lot of sense.

Chet Roman

September 4, 2017 at 10:32 am

Another great article by Robert Parry. He describes the misinformation and outright lies by the MSM as “groupthink” and I think it’s a safe way of describing their reporting. However, I think the inclusion of “totalitarian style” in the headline is more accurate and a true characterization of what the Washington Post, NYT and CNN are doing is pure propaganda more comparable to Pravda during the Soviet Union period.

Hank

September 4, 2017 at 11:40 am

Gee whiz Robert, it has worked many times before: repeat a lie often enuogh and it becomes a reality to the masses who never question what those in authority expound. It has to be simple and repeated often so that it is not compromised in the rumor mill. Simple but effective

Akech

September 4, 2017 at 11:41 am

Journalists with conscience are risking losing their livelihoods and lives in attempts to inform the whole world about those elites in some hidden corners of the world who are financially motivated to participate in the slaughter of innocent human beings around the world. There are profits to be made in terrorizing and killing the innocents worldwide:

“August 29th the notorious Zero Hedge creator, Tyler Durden wrote a piece entitled ‘Why Google Made The NSA’, which revealed a project called INSURGE INTELLIGENCE, a crowd-funded investigative journalism project that had released a story of how the United States intelligence community funded, nurtured and incubated Google as part of a drive to dominate the world through control of information. […] The Zero hedge story delves deep into a ‘deep state’ we never imagined in our worst nightmares. The report unveils how Pentagon Highlands Forum’s more or less taking over tech giants like Google to pursue mass surveillance. Furthermore, the report shows how the intelligence community has played a key role in secret efforts to manipulate the media and the public. The endless crisis and war we find ourselves in, is in large part because of the efforts of Google and the other technocratic institutions. In on section the author frames how the Obama administration really consolidated this ‘Big Brother’ control:

“’Under Obama, the nexus of corporate, industry, and financial power represented by the interests that participate in the Pentagon Highlands Forum has consolidated itself to an unprecedented degree.’

“These people refer to themselves as ‘the gatekeepers’. Their arrogance is only exceeded by their amoral agnosticism. The successes of the information age, Silicon Valley’s dubious venture capital bonanzas, the mysterious ways in which fairly ordinary innovators were propelling into the limelight warns us to the underlying swamp Donald Trump described. But it is the immensity of the network that should clue us. Imagine a new president taking office and fending off attacks as best he could, only to discover that the whole machine of the US government being under such a controlling influence. It’s easy to theorize after learning all this, how Trump did an about face on so many issues. He must have been overwhelmed. Or, he was part of the plan all along.”

Hey Abe, I read Phil Butler’s article, and it disgusted me too come to the reality that we Americans are now being censored. It was one thing to accept that we have loss all rights of privacy, but now this. The sad part is, is that many among us upon hearing of such censorship as google is a part of, they disbelieve it, and chock it off to another conspiracy theory in the mix.

Besides all that, I’m glad to see you commenting. Your absence causes me concern for your well being. Losing Bill Bodden this year was enough, so stay well Abe. Joe

mike k

September 4, 2017 at 9:21 pm

Americans are living a story that most of them are not aware of. The name of the story is 1984.

Joe Tedesky

September 4, 2017 at 11:07 pm

All the more reason to believe Orwell had a time machine.

Skip Scott

September 5, 2017 at 9:49 am

Thanks Abe. Good to hear from you. I can’t say I’m all that surprised about google and Highlands forum. It’s like 1984 is their “how to” manual.

Bill

September 5, 2017 at 10:09 am

Is it true the Russia-gate is a CIA operation directed by John Brennan? Brennan is still on TV all the time pushing his agenda. WTF is a former CIA Director doing in politics? It’s got a really bad smell to it.

Hank

September 5, 2017 at 10:09 am

All this time and no evidence…not even “manufactured” evidence…yet it has been nixed by Bill Binney and others (Ed Snowden). The NSA captures Everything…what was found is that the “leak” occurred in the Eastern time zone and could not have been downloaded over the internet…Ray McGovern (ex-CIA analyst)

Gina Doggett

September 5, 2017 at 12:57 pm

Don’t forget to mention that the DNC repeatedly refused to allow the FBI or any other government body to examine its server!

Roy G Biv

September 11, 2017 at 9:04 pm

Haha. As if. Pathetic lie

Clifford Heindel

September 5, 2017 at 4:30 pm

I’ve repeatedly contacted NPR through the various channels it provides, citing your articles here. Their ‘reporting’ and autistic repetition of ‘Russian’ #$%_)&^* had lost all perspective, and now they can’t even acknowledge it or seem to identify what I’m concerned about, instead pointing to ‘posts’ (forgetting they’re a ‘radio’ broadcast) which cite officials, but not the DNI piece.

What we’re observing is a vicious power struggle, wherein truth for itself doesn’t count, only what’s useful to the cause, which is always going to be the lies seen as most damning if they can be believed.